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Notable Women 
of St. Louis 



WOODWARD 



Qp 



NOTABLE WOMEN 

OF ST. LOUIS 

1914 



Edited and Published by 
MRS. CHAS. P. JOHNSON 






COPTMGHT, 1914 

Mrs. Chas. P. Johnson 



APR 25 1914 



©CI.A36983a 




KAJIWARA PMdT. 



MRS. CHAS. P. JOHNSON 



This Book 

Is Lovingly Dedicated to My Husband, 

Chas. p. Johnson 



Foreword 



THESE are sketches of some of the leading women 
Uving in the city of St. Louis today. The story of 
each woman's Hfe has afforded me an afternoon delightfully 
spent in her studio or library, or mine. It was not with 
the thought of any remuneration that I have written them, 
nor was it suggested by any woman included in the series, 
but because there should be some record of their achieve- 
ments placed in all public libraries, to which reference could 
be made when desired by the people of other cities, as well 
as our own. Every city of any size has one or more books 
of its important and noted men, but so far none has been 
published as a tribute to the noteworthy and capable 
women. There are about sixty-five names in this series of 
the most generally known, although there are many others 

interesting and successful. 

Anne Andre-Johnson. 



"/i is the deed that confers human dignity; and the toork 
accomplished is the only register of worth." 

— Rabbi Leon Harrison. 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Akins, Miss Zoe 11 

Anderson, Amabel, LL. M 13 

Baumhoff, Mrs. F. W 17 

Bernays, Miss Tiiekla M 20 

Bishop, Dr. Prances Lewis 25 

Blattner, Mrs. Elise J 28 

Bourgeoise, Mrs. Anita Calvert 31 

Burg, Mrs. Lulu Kunkel 34 

Burgess, Mrs. Samuel R 38 

Cairns, Mrs. Anna Sneed 43 

Collins, Mrs. Charles Cummings 51 

Coonsman, Miss Nancy 214 

Dillon, Mrs. Mary C 54 

Dodds, Dr. Mary 58 

Epstein, Mrs. A. 1 61 

Erskine, Miss Lucille 64 

Fisher, Miss Mary 66 

Fruchte, Miss Amelia C 70 

Garrett, Mrs. Edmund A 76 

Gerhard Sisters 79 

Gooding, Hattie B 82 

Grossman, Mrs. E. M 84 

Hay ward. Miss Florence 88 

Hedges, Miss Anna C 93 

Hoke, Miss Martha H 96 

Hughey, Mrs. Fannie E. McKinney.. 100 

Hurst, Miss Fannie 105 

Hutchings, Mrs. Emily Grant 110 

Ingalls, Mrs. F. H 115 

Johnston, Mrs. Maria 1 121 

Knight, Mrs. Franklyn 128 

Kriegshaber, Mrs. David 132 



P.^GE 

Martyn, Marguerite 137 

McCulloch, Miss Mary C 142 

McLean, Dr. Mary Hancock 146 

McNair, Miss Louise 149 

Meriwether, Mrs. Elizabeth Avery. . . . 153 

Moore, Mrs. Philip North 158 

Morse, Miss Bessie 162 

Moyer, Mrs. Alice Curtice 166 

Nirdlinger, Daisy E 169 

Orff, Mrs. Annie Laurie Y 171 

Osborn, Dr. Ellen 174 

Pattison, Mrs. Everett W 179 

Peugnet, Madame Armand 181 

Pittman, Mrs. Hannah D 185 

Porcher, Mrs. Frances 188 

Rathbun, Miss Helen G 193 

Reif snider, Mrs. Calvin Kryder 196 

Richardson, Mrs. Florence Wyman. . . 202 

Richter, Mrs. Fernande 207 

Risque, Miss Caroline 211 

Schulenburg, Miss Adele 214 

Senseney, Mrs. E. T 219 

Simonds, Miss May 222 

Teasdale, Miss Sara 225 

Thomas, Mrs. M. Louise 230 

Thummel, Miss Caroline G 234 

Wagoner, Mrs. Harry E 237 

Wagoner, Mrs. H. H 240 

Whitney, Mrs. Victoria Conkling.... 244 

Wines, Mrs. Frances Cushman 247 

Winn, Miss Jane Prances 250 

Wyer, Mrs. Berenice 255 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS 20E AKtNS 



Notable Women of St. Louis 



MISS ZOE AKINS 

MISS ZOE AKINS writes beautiful poems. Her first volume of verse, 
"Interpretations," published in 1912, was accorded unstinted 
admiration in our country and abroad. In this book such poems 
as "Mary Magdalen" and the "Sisterhood" are strongly representative of a 
new hne of thought, while the other poems are also charmingly written. 
Miss Akins began writing verse and plays at a very early age. "The End 
of the Strike" was written when she was about seventeen. At nineteen 
she wrote a verse drama, "Iseult, the Fair," which, as she states, "for a 
time promised to be published and produced." Later she wrote a number 
of other poems that helped lay the foundation of what she has so success- 
fully been building onto ever since. Several other dramatic works also 
came from her pen about that time, none of which has been published 
or put on the stage as yet— "The Voice," 1907, a one-act play, with the 
scene laid in a Turkish harem; "The Wandering Shepherd," 1907, a 
masque; "The Sin," 1909, a modern drama, in four acts, dealing with 
heredity mainly; "The Meddler," 1909, on anarcWsm; "The Learned 
Lady," 1910, a comedy, and "Clemence," 1911, a psychological study, in 
one act. "Papa," an amorality in three acts, edited by Edwin Bjorkman, 
is her latest play, which has caused quite a stir generally and not alone 
in literary circles. 

The light and disdainfully airy manner in which she handles a 
delicate situation, or, rather, many of them, usually regarded as anything 
but frivolous, makes the play decidedly unusual in plot and treatment. 
It is a frothy conception with an underlying interest that lingers with 
the reader and can not be dismissed so easily nor forgotten so quickly. It 
is a daring story of an adventure, after which the characters all fall in 
amicably with whatever is suggested; in real life the solution might not 
be worked out so happily, and generally is not. 

Zoe Akins was born at Humansville, Mo., in 1886, a village in the 
region of the Ozark Mountains. Her parents moved to St. Louis while 
she was quite young. For two years she attended Hosmer Hall in tliis 
city, followed by two more at Monticello Seminary, Godfrey, III. Miss 
Akins had some experience on the stage when she was seventeen years 
old, with the Odeon Stock Company, then playing in St. Louis. Finding 



12 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

notliing attractive in the work, she decided she would never care to 
become an actress. Then she began writing articles for "The Mirror" 
and the daily newspapers. One of her ambitions was to meet and know 
celebrated people. 

She is an enthusiastic admirer of Julia Marlowe, who influenced her 
to study the great European dramatists, and who has been of assistance 
to her in many ways. Miss Akins' mother was Elizabeth Green, daughter 
of Dr. Henry Louis Green, who came to St. Louis from Kentucky after 
the war. Different members of the family of Mrs. Akins were writers 
and authors, and her uncle, General Duff Green, was a Southern news- 
paper editor. On her maternal side, also. Miss Akins is a descendant of 
the Earl of Pembroke. Her father, Mr. Thomas J. Akins, was Postmaster 
of St. Louis under President Taft, following a position as head of the 
sub-treasury under President Roosevelt, and is one of the leaders in the 
Republican party. While Mr. Akins was Postmaster, Miss Zoe acted as 
his secretary. She spends part of every Winter in New York, where 
she finds the life and association of literary people much to her fancy. 
Miss Akins is small in stature, lovable in disposition and fascinating in 
manner. 




GERHARD SISTERS PHOTO 



MISS AMABEL ANDERSON 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 13 



AMABEL ANDERSON, LL. M. 

AMABEL ANDERSON, director woman's department, City College 
J-\ of Law and Finance, was born in Clathan, Ontario, Canada, May 
31, 1883. Her mother was a Canadienne, whose sturdy EngUsh 
ancestry — the Burgess familj' — have for many generations been known 
among the most progressive people of Yarmouth — well educated, pros- 
perous and of sterling quality. From her father, who is a natural-born 
United States citizen, she inherits the versatile nature that comes from a 
combination of nationalities. The family moved to London, Ontario, 
where Amabel secured her first two years of primary education. She 
was the constant companion of her only brother, Charles, three years 
her senior, in whom she found gallant protection then, as well as during 
the many years they enjoyed home companionship together. 

Summers and the Christmas seasons were spent at their mother's 
old home near Aylmer, Ontario. This is remembered by them as the 
biggest and finest farm in the world. Trees planted on both sides of 
the old road meet to form an arch. Lawns, rose bushes, butternut trees, 
corn fields, hills and valleys, natural springs, wild berry patches — all go 
to make up a picturesque background where 'Mabel was spoiled by 
indulgent grandparents. Aunt and Uncle Fisher. There are a series of 
mental pictures so indelibly stamped as never to be erased concerning 
this one Uncle Fisher, who stands out in the foreground as the typical 
uncle — the embodiment of gentleness, wisdom, charity, and also a certain 
unforgotten discipline that maintained a sort of balance on the one hand 
as against the too-often great indulgence on the other. 

This conservative city life in London and the wonderful country 
visits were brought to an abrupt close when, at an early age, she accom- 
panied the family on a trip west; that is, to the eastern part of Michigan. 
Here she was initiated into rural school life. Both teacher and pupils 
seemed to belong to a different and larger race, and placed the frail 
Canadian city child in constant fear; the school methods were totally 
different; even the sort of play engaged in seemed weird and strange. 
It was not until two years later that the habit of study was in a measure 
acquired through the assistance of a retiring little "school ma'am" with 
a big soul and charming personality, who, by her untiring, patient efforts, 
taught her pupils to stand alone. It was undoubtedly the help of this 
teacher that enabled 'Mabel to pass the high-school entrance examination, 
in the third district school in Tuscola County, Micliigan, at the age of 
twelve. 



14 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. L0UI8 

The business of Mr. Anderson again changed their residence location 
to Bay City, Mich. Here were spent tlie years between fourteen and 
twenty, in which niucli miscellaneous educational work was done. 'Mabel 
studied music, sketching, and attended high school. Without completing 
high school, she next determined to teach, and while seventeen had 
completed her first j^ear of teaching. During these years she was actively 
engaged in church and club work, on several occasions organizing and 
promoting literary and physical culture clubs. 

In trying to live up to her ideals as a teacher during this first year 
so as to be a permanent benefit to every child under her tutelage, an 
intense longing for higher education seized her. She had had the oppor- 
tunity of a course in the Ferris Normal School previous to this, and 
now planned to make greater progress by hastily completing the 
unfinished high-school course, and at the same time holding the position 
as substitute teacher in the lower grades. This plan was successfully 
carried out. She continued to attend the Ferris Normal School several 
months of each year, and following the completion of liigh-school work 
took the principalship of a ten-grade school. She continued to teach and 
study, and a little later completed the normal course, and also a course 
in painting. 

In 1907 she came to St. Louis with her husband, W. E. Arnold, a 
medical student in the American Medical College. She opened the Arnold 
Preparatory School in the Benoist Building, where, for six years, she 
conducted a successful school, offering academic courses. Here she 
enrolled many inen, and some women, whose early education had been 
neglected. She and her assistants tutored them privately' and placed her 
graduates in nearly every department of every college and university in 
St. Louis, and in like institutions in other cities, and this inade a lasting 
name for her as a competent, modern teacher. She was painstaking in 
her endeavor to develop in her students personal power and self-mastery, 
inspiring many discouraged students to build a new ideal and helping 
them to realize it by close co-operation. 

While managing this preparatory school, she added many lines of 
activities. She accepted a position, witli salary, as instructor of Latin, 
in the dental department of the St. Louis University during the school 
year 1908-09, the only woman instructor in tlie university, and professor 
of medical botany in the American Medical College, again the only woman 
instructor, during the same year and the year following. 

Amabel Anderson Arnold determined to minimize her public responsi- 
bilities so as to devote her hours outside of home and her school to the 
study of law. She entered the City College of Law and Finance, taking 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 15 

a night course, September, 1910, successfully completing two years of 
law that year. The following year she attended the third-year lectures 
at the City College of Law and Finance, and the same j^ear the fourth- 
year law work at the Benton College of Law. As a consequence, she 
graduated from two law schools about the same time, receiving the 
degree of LL. B., June 11, 1912, from the City College of Law and Finance, 
being the only woman in tlie class, having received the degree of LL. M. 
from the Benton College of Law, five days earlier, June 6, 1912 — again 
the only woman. 

With tlie idea of expanding her school work and preparing to annex 
her preparatory school to some larger institution, Mrs. Arnold devoted 
much time to tlie organization of a woman's study club during the early 
part of the year 1912. This work resulted in the organization known as 
the Women's National College Club, with headquarters in St. Louis, and 
also a local St. Louis branch, with Amabel Anderson Arnold as national 
president, and local president for the first year. In this she was assisted 
by many progressive St. Louis women. This is a study club, which 
permits free discussion and expression along any line which the club 
may select by vote. 

Amabel Anderson is a strong advocate of universal adult suffrage. 
When she began the study of law she had thought of spending her time 
in lecturing for suffrage and kindred emancipational subjects; later she 
became convinced that she could do more constructive work with greater 
direct results by devoting her time to the practical business-legal education 
of women. She was a charter member of the St. Louis Equal Suffrage 
League, and sent out the first invitations to business women, asking them 
to meet to consider the organization of a league to further suffrage. The 
constitution and by-laws of the league were written in her office with her 
aid. This was the beginning of the present flourishing Business Woman's 
Equal Suffrage League of St. Louis. She is an enthusiastic member of 
the organization. 

On July 15, 1912, Mrs. Arnold was one of about a dozen St. Louis 
women attorneys who organized the Woman's State Bar Association of 
Missouri. This is the only association of its kind in the world. She 
was one of the committee on constitution and by-laws, and is the standing 
publicity committee. 

Amabel Anderson Arnold sought and secured a divorce from Dr. 
W. E. Arnold, December 2, 1912, at that time a practicing physician in 
Oklahoma, and received the restoration of her maiden name — Anderson. 
She determined not only to change domestic affairs which were far from 
ideal, but also to make this change in sucli a way that neither party to 



16 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

the suit would receive any serious injury. This required careful planning, 
a good supply of courage, and intelligent consciously directed effort. All 
of this effort was justified, because both were stronger individuals and 
were further on the road to higher success by having worked together 
those six years. 

She realizes, as never before, the absolute need of the thorough 
education of girls and women on the one vital, fundamental, social prob- 
lem, the proper, universal legislation on marriage and divorce, and other 
domestic relations, and some form of intelligent management of the 
home; all this reform to take the place of the present barbaric, male- 
made laws and customs, and their double standard of morals. 

While it is true a few women make progress under the very unfavor- 
able present-day environment and its legal restrictions, yet, just as the 
rose develops its greatest beauty and most perfect fragrance only under 
the ideal nurture of the scientific florist, just so human civilization will 
never reach its deserved goal until woman has removed from her path 
the multiplied bondages — economic, social and domestic. 

The combination of law study, club activity, educational achieve- 
ment, and broad experience, was a leading factor in the development of her 
political convictions and her decided stand for thorough emancipational 
education and efficiency equipment for women. 

Realizing that a chartered institution of learning is the best means 
of putting into practice these broad plans, Miss Anderson proposed the 
establishment of a woman's department in connection with the City 
College of Law and Finance, and in September, 1913, she accepted a 
position as director of the woman's department of said institution. The 
college has both local and extension courses, giving splendid opportunity 
to disseminate emancipational knowledge by means of such subjects as 
history of politics and political parties, evolution of women, economic 
interpretation of history, business English and commercial rhetoric, 
character analysis and parliamentary law, the latter of wliich Miss Ander- 
son teaches. These and other special courses are offered in addition to 
all regular law and commerce courses of the college. 

Amabel Anderson has been appointed on the regular faculty of the 
City College of Law and Finance as lecturer and instructor in the chair 
of international law, for the year 1914-15; again, the only woman holding 
such a position in St. Louis. 

Miss Anderson deserves much credit for the intellectual curiosity, 
untiring energy and determination she has shown in all her efforts to 
develop herself, and the success of her various undertakings. 




GERHARD SISTERS PHOTO 



MRS. F. W BAUMHOFF 



M 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 17 



MRS. F. W. BAUMHOFF 

I. S. S. MOTTO. 

Have you had a kindness shown? 

Pass it on. 
'Twas not given for you alone. 

Pass it on. 
Let it travel down the years, 
Let it wipe another's tears. 
Till in heaven the deed appears, 

Pass it on. 

RS. F. W. BAUMHOFF, founder of the Missouri Division of the 
International Sunshine Society, in fourteen years of leadership 
has brought more than twenty-five thousand members into the 
International Sunshine Society through her press departments on Sunshine, 
and by her personal efforts. 

Mrs. C. W. Trowbridge was the first State president, and Mrs. Baum- 
hoff acted as treasurer and secretary, also superintendent of junior work. 
This State Brancli was organized in 1902. Tlie International Sunshine So- 
ciety was founded in 1896, in New York, with eighteen members, by 
Cynthia Westover Alden. Now the membership numbers over 300,000, and 
extends to all parts of the world. Of the original members who supported 
and assisted tlie Sunshine Sewing School — twelve years ago — only the 
following are living: Mrs. Wm. E. Warren (who was Mrs. F. M. Bie- 
binger) , Mrs. John Conrath, Mrs. W. H. Sturgess, Mrs. Lola V. Hays, Mrs. 
Marcella Keys-Hanaford, Mrs. Jos. Maloney, and Mrs. J. C. Woodson. 
Mrs. F. W. Baumhoff is now the honorary president, while Mrs. Marcella 
Keys-Hanaford is the president. 

This Sunshine Society has accomplished a wonderful amount of good 
in places where the regularly organized charitable associations can not 
readily reach. They are always quick to respond to appeals for assistance, 
taking methods for placing the sick and afflicted in immediate touch with 
the best care and attention from physicians, placing them in hospitals, 
and rendering any assistance that may be needed in any direction, rang- 
ing from temporary relief from poverty to long treatments for clironic 
cases of disease of body and mind. 

While the work is general, yet this year Mrs. Baumhoff's special 
plan is to reach, through her Missouri Division, all the people possible 
by the press, pulpit, free lectures — which she gives by traveling all through 
the State — correspondence and sending out of literature on the subject, 
on the prevention of blindness, and to give those already blind oppor- 
tunities of education to enable them to become self-respecting and inde- 



18 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L0VI8 

pendent. She wants to awaken an interest throughout the State in the 
care, maintenance and training of dependent Wind children, before pre- 
senting the Blind Babies' Bill to the next Legislature. In her lectures 
she proposes to use the deaf, dumb and blind deserted child — who has 
already had all these advantages to demonstrate the possibilities of and 
necessity for such care. 

Mrs. Baumhoff resigned recently as State president of the Missouri 
Branch, that she might devote all her time to the interest of the blind 
cliildren of Missouri, and in honor of her long and faithful service to the 
State organization was unanimously elected honorary president of the 
Missouri Division for life. Besides the care of blind children, the society 
maintains a baby ward in the Children's Home Society of Missouri. Much 
convalescent work is also done, wheel chairs are provided where needed, 
and social service work of the city is always greatly assisted by the 
Sunshine Society of St. Louis. 

Mrs. Baumhoff will also give, during 1914, a series of lectures to 
young women to help them look out for themselves, and eliminate, as 
far as possible, the foundation of trouble, illness, or wrong, caused by 
the words, "I did not know." 

The following Sunshine Memorials, most of which were studied, 
financed, and gotten into good order by Mrs. F. W. Baumhoff, before 
presenting to the State Sunshine for adoption, are: 

Winter of 1901-1902, maintained the Sunshine Sewing School at 
Seventh and Gratiot Streets, thereby aiding 200 poor children and their 
parents; closely followed by furnishing a room in the Sunshine Convales- 
cent Home in the Mountains of Hendersonville, N. C; room in the New 
Blind Girls' Home (St. Louis) ; two cribs in the Brooklyn Blind Babies' 
Home; Sunshine Baby Ward in the Missouri Cliildren's Home (St. Louis), 
with eighteen memorial cribs; aided three Sunshine Scholarships; main- 
tained a crib in the St. Louis Children's Hospital for five years; gave 
twenty-one libraries to isolated towns and institutions; loan of ten wheel- 
chairs to shut-ins unable to buy or rent one; assisted, placed and sup- 
ported eighteen refined old folks, many of them four-score years; cheering 
the shut-ins and four-score members; helped and saved young girls from 
temptation and vice. 

Before adopting Mrs. Baumhoff's seven-year studied plan of intelli- 
gent mothering, care and training of blind children under school age in 
their own homes, as far as it is deemed advisable, it was considered 
wisest to protect all of the Sunshine interests by incorporating the Missouri 
Division, International Sunshine Society, which was accomplished January 
25, 1912. It is hoped by using this plan for blind children to preserve 



yOTABLEWOMEXOFST. LOUIS 19 

the little children's individuality by mothering, and at less expense, and 
to make no efforts to estabHsh a blind babies' home until absolutely 
necessary. 

This society has no indebtedness, no paid oflicers or solicitors. It 
has done more practical humanitarian work with a limited treasury, and 
established more paid-up memorials than any other society of its size 
and kind. The local work owes much of its success to the Press and the 
hearty co-operation with other social agencies, which avoided duplication 
of work, waste of time and expense. 

The International Sunshine Society has done more for blind babies 
in a comparatively few j^ears of its existence, than a century has other- 
wise seen done for this class of service. The "light hunger" of a blind 
cliild retards its growth and progress mentally, physicall3% morally and 
spiritually. If it is not intelligently assisted to develop its mind, and thus 
given its birthright to become as sweet, lovable, bright and progressive 
as the sighted child, it will take later more time, patience, love, individual 
attention and mothering to help the blind child than a normal one. 

Mrs. Clara Estelle Baumhotf, under which name she writes, is a 
charter member of the Papyrus Club, Twinkler's Club (both writers' 
clubs) ; is a member of the Mother's Circle of the Shenandoah School, as 
well as of various educational and philanthropical organizations. She 
has contributed many short stories for children, valuable social service 
articles to leading magazines, and is now preparing to publish her novel, 
"That Awful Brother," full of humor and pathos, embodying much of 
her sunshine activities. 

She finds great pleasure in her family of husband, F. W. Baumhoff, 
and three boys, and their companions. Despite her many activities and 
hterary work, she is always ready to serve as an information bureau to 
the many calls for assistance, and has surely demonstrated of what an 
immeasurable value a "sunshiny" disposition may be in the lives of the 
disheartened, discouraged and worried applicants who have come to her 
with full hearts and empty purses, but who were never turned away 
without the proper assistance, both mentally and physically. Mrs. W. E. 
Warren, her sister, has worked hand in hand with Mrs. Baumhoff in 
these many enterprises for public good. 



20 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MISS THEKLA M. BERNAYS 

A SMALL town in Illinois — Highland — has the honor of being the 
birthplace of the late Dr. A. C. Bernays, celebrated in surgery, and 
Miss Thekla Bernays, his sister. 

Miss Bernays' recently published memoirs of the Doctor give us some 
very interesting information about their ancestry — Jewish, French Hugue- 
not and German Lutheran. (The Catholic and other religions came later 
through marriage.) The house of Bernays has been one of distinction 
for several generations. The descendants of one of Miss Bernays' great- 
grandfathers have won honor and fame in many lands, including England, 
Belgium, Russia, Austria, Germany, Australia, India, Canada, and this 
country. Among the men of note have been rabbis, rectors, pastors and 
priests; physicians, surgeons and chemists; lawyers, diplomats and states- 
men; poets, novelists and historians; journalists and teachers; musicians 
and orators; architects and builders; scientists and inventors; philologists 
and orientalists. 

Miss Bernays' father was the late Dr. George J. Bernays, a son of 
Clemens and a grandson of Jacob Bernays, of Germany. Her mother 
was Minna, daughter of Frederick Doering, of Germany, and a grand- 
daughter, on her mother's side, of Seris Bertrand, of France. George and 
Minna first met in Germany, but tlie wooing was done in England, where 
he was finisliing his medical studies and she was teacliing French and 
German, and the marriage did not take place until the young physician 
had prepared a home for the bride in the land of their adoption. The 
ceremony was performed in St. Louis at the residence of Henry Boernstein, 
well known as a theatrical manager and head of a newspaper at that time. 

August and his sister Thekla were taken early in life to Germany, and 
after the return of the family to tliis country a few years later, they resided 
in St. Louis until their removal to Lebanon, 111., in 1866. Both in St. Louis 
and Lebanon, Miss Bernays is remembered as an unusually bright child. 
In the public school of Lebanon she stood at the head of her classes, and 
later she became what might properly be called a model student of 
McKendree College. In one of the literary societies of the college, tlie 
Clionian, she ranked high as an essayist, and during her junior year, her 
last year at McKendree, Miss Bernays was twice elected president of 
the society. 

Soon after Dr. A. C. Bernays' graduation from McKendree College in 
1872, tlie family went to Germany, and for the next five 3'ears made their 
home in Heidelberg. Here Miss Bernays' studies were continued in a 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOVia 21 

school for the higher education of women, scholars of her sex not being 
admitted to the university. In May, 1874, a state examination for teachers 
was held at Karlsruhe, the capital of the grand-duchy, Baden. Miss 
Bernays, then scarcely eighteen years old, passed with flying colors, 
receiving the highest grade given at the examination — an honor not unlike 
that received by her brother, August, a couple of years later, when the 
degree of Doctor of Medicine, sunima cum laude, was awarded him by 
the University of Heidelberg. 

The family returned to America in the spring of 1877. Miss Bernays 
has spent winters in this and summers in that country of Europe, and 
has traveled much in other parts of the world, but all the time she has 
been loyal to St. Louis, has called this city her home, and her literary work 
has been largely for readers of the local press. 

For a long time Miss Bernays declined to do any writing for publica- 
tion. The ice was broken, as it were, by the action of a friend in having 
printed in the "Bepublic" a few extracts from a private letter received from 
Miss Bernays, then in Europe. These extracts received so much favor- 
able comment that she was led to write several articles for the "Globe- 
Democrat." One of these articles, printed April 15, 1894, under the 
heading "Currents of Literature," treats of Scandinavian, Russian, French, 
German, English and French literature, and of the various kinds and 
classes and schools of writers — dilettantists, classicists, naturalists, roman- 
ticists, impressionists, decadents, symbolists, sensitivists, positivists, mys- 
ticists, etc. 

A letter from Berlin during Miss Bernays' next winter in Europe gave 
to the readers of tliat paper her impressions of Hugo Rheinhold, and 
some of the achievements in art of this metaphysician, philosopher and 
sculptor. Professor Forel, of Zurich, Switzerland, noted as an advocate 
of temperance, as well as a university professor, was the subject of another 
interesting letter. A third, printed a little later, told of the artistic merits 
of Professor Olbrich, noted then specially for an art museum he had built 
in Vienna and a number of model residences at Darmstadt, and destined 
to win high honor at our World's Fair by his architectural and decorative 
work in Germany's section of the Varied Industries Building. 

Eugene Benson, an American artist in Venice, was introduced to St. 
Louisans through the medium of the "Times" on April 27, 1907. The 
article was headed "Discovering a True Master in the Byways of Art." 
In another issue of the "Times" we find "Causerie on Beauty Contests," 
an article suggested by the many beauty contests in this country a few 
years ago. 



22 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L O U I 8 

Reedy's "Mirror" was also honored with one of Miss Bernays' "caus- 
erie" articles. See "The Vogue of the Epigram — A Canicular Causerie," in 
tlie issue of July 30, 1908. Only a few months ago — during her last 
European outing — Miss Bernays contributed several excellent articles, 
suggested by her travels, to the "Mirror." Another series of letters that 
attracted much attention depicted life and scenes in and about Banff, in 
the Canadian Rockies, where Miss Bernays spent two or three summers, 
or parts of them. The letters appeared in the "Globe-Democrat." 

Miss Bemays has occasionally given her views, when requested, on 
leading poUtical, social and economic questions. On the subject of suf- 
frage she said, in the Sunday "Post-Dispatch" of May 10, 1908: 

"There certainly is injustice in withholding the ballot from educated, 
thinking, conscientious women who can acquire, hold and manage prop- 
erty, who bring into the world, rear and instruct the young, the right of 
voting on sanitary, educational, municipal issues of every kind. It is a 
mystery to me that the law-making sex, which claims, 1 believe, that in 
it the sense of justice is, by the grace of God, inherent, can stand idly by, 
year after year, and contemplate the revolting spectacle of men of brutal 
instincts — alien, sordid, illiterate — exercising rights touching on women's 
most vital interests, while women of fine mentality and strong character 
are powerless politically to manifest themselves, except by paying taxes — 
curious that masculinity, though never ceasing to assert its superiority 
over women, in the perception of the humorous does not see the grim 
humor, the terrific irony, the ludicrous contradiction, in its conception of 
justice." 

In a plea for the protection of the home, Miss Bernays said, in the 
"Star" of April 2, 1913: 

"Women need suffrage for sanitation, for the suppression of adulter- 
ated and unhygienic food, to enforce cessation of the wholesale murder of 
innocents by bad milk, to reduce the harm to health and energy by the 
smoke nuisance, to abolish the white slave traffic — in short, to protect our 
homes." 

Miss Bernays' decalogue for women, announced at a "suffrage tea" 
given at the residence of Mrs. F. W. Lehmann in December, 1911, calls 
for equal facilities in education, equal rights in guardianship of children, 
equal wages for equal work, a single standard of moralitj', regulation and 
restraint of child labor, the abolition of sweatshops, the abolition of fire- 
trap factories, suppression of smoke, minimizing the drink evil without 
interfering with personal liberty, and abolition of the white slave traffic. 

Miss Bernays is a linguist. English, German and French she learned 
in childhood at home, Latin later in school, and Italian during her several 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 23 

winters in the land of Dante and Michael Angelo. These languages she 
has found very useful, not only in the countries where they are generally 
spoken, but also in Holland and Denmark, in Sweden and Norway, and 
even in the larger cities of Japan, each of which has quite a colony of 
English, French, German, Italian and American residents. 

Some of her best articles and letters were written in German for the 
"Westlichie Post." "Rulers," by Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurra, 
translated from the German by Thekla Bernays, appeared in the "Times" 
several years ago. 

An announcement made on the title page of a little book in the Lieder- 
kranz Club's library will be remembered by many members of the club: 
"Liederkranz Libretto of George Vierling's Celebrated Composition, 'The 
Rape of the Sabines (Der Raub der Sabinerinnen) for Chorus, Soli and 
Orchestra, to be Given at Mercantile Library Hall Thursday, February 12, 
1880, (English by Miss Thekla Bernays.) Full Chorus of 110 Voices, a 
Grand Orchestra of 45 Selected Musicians — Prof. Egmont Froehlich, 
Director." 

This was one of three of George Vierling's librettos that she 
translated. 

The most important work of Miss Bernays in this line was the trans- 
lation of a long article in German on a very abstruse subject in meta- 
physics. The late Dr. William T. Harris, United States Commissioner of 
Education (and before that Superintendent of the St. Louis Public Schools 
for many years) , wanted an English translation of the article for Ms Jour- 
nal of Speculative Philosophy, and Miss Bernays accommodated him. That 
was not long after Dr. Harris left St. Louis. Only recently she translated 
"The Judgment of Salome," a drama by a woman in Germany and not yet 
published. 

With Miss Mary Perry, Miss Bernays represented St. Louis and Mis- 
souri some years ago at a national convention of men and women inter- 
ested in settlement work, charities, rescue and relief work and other move- 
ments for tlie uplift of humanitj'. She has acted as a judge of awards in 
various contests conducted by the local newspapers. At our World's Fair 
she represented Germany on one of the group juries and the Exposition's 
Board of Lady Managers on a department jury for the awarding of prizes. 

Miss Bernays has appeared many times in public as a speaker and 
lecturer. She has delivered addresses and read papers before many socie- 
ties and clubs, including the Young Men's Self-Culture Club, a similar 
organization for working girls, the St. Louis Negro Self-Culture Associa- 
tion, the Wednesday Club, the Greek Ethics Society and the Century Club. 
One of the papers read was printed as a Christmas souvenir. "Diplomatic 



24 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. L0VI8 

Women; an Essay Read Before the Century Club of St. Louis, Mo., by Miss 
Thekla M. Bernays," makes an interesting little volume of some twenty 
pages. The M in the name is for Mary, the last letter being sometimes 
changed to "ie," as in German. In an old college exhibition programme 
we find that "Miss T. Marie Bernays" was cast for the role of "Betty" in 
the drama "Kill or Cure." Her contributions to the "Westliche Post" were 
signed simply T. M. B. 

An address delivered by her before the St. Louis Wednesday Club on 
"Postulating an American Literature," and which was printed in the 
"Bulletin" of Washington University, attracted much attention. It is a 
"back-to-nature" plea for American literature. 

"Back to nature out of the sultry atmosphere of unnatural mystic 
optimism," she says; "back to the original tears and laughter, the primeval 
feelings; back to the great tragic situations, even to the sad denouement! 
Back to nature wath the calm of being, sometimes relieving the intensity 
of doing; back to the art of living in more original forms; back from the 
false stress of ceaseless and pernicious activity ! Back, lastly, from eclecti- 
cism and superficiality in education to the bracing discipline of mind, body 
and heart by slow and careful training along simpler lines." 

In 1902 Miss Bernays received from McKendree College the honorary 
degree of Master of Arts, an honor conferred by the college on only two 
other women in the eighty-six years of its existence. The degree was 
awarded for "meritorious work in the criticism of art and modern 
literature." 

Her crowning literarj' work was the book referred to in the opening 
paragraph, "Augustus Charles Bernays, a Memoir" — a volume of some 
300 pages, every one worth reading and rereading. In his review of the 
book, William Marion Reedy said: 

"Beautifully written is tliis, his sister's memoir of him. The book has 
a plenitude of the greatest preservative — style. It is literature — plastic, 
yet firm; reticent, yet generously' depictive; the language carries perfectly 
the varying mood or emotion. And into this literature is woven character 
— that of the memoired and the memorialist; exquisite, both. * * * 
This book will live, or I am mistaken, for there are two very attractive 
lives in the graceful texture of its always lucid, perspicuous and often 
sweetly cadenced prose." 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L0VI8 25 



DR. FRANCES LEWIS BISHOP 

AN associate of Doctor Frances Lewis Bishop says: "She not only 
/A studied medicine because she is better fitted for it mentally and 
physically, but because she feels the compelling need to do her 
share toward lessening the miseries of living. 

The man who studies medicine as a career and as a means of liveli- 
hood only may often make a respectable practitioner. He may, and often 
does, become a specialist, seeing all mankind as interesting adjuncts to 
eyes or noses, or less obvious organs immured in human depths. He is 
not called upon to treat the whole man even in body, and when his office 
hours are over he closes the doors of office and mind alike upon the case. 

The rise of the specialist and the growing infrequency of that old- 
fashioned "family physician" is perhaps one reason why we have so many 
new cults, when a miore or less formal confessional fills the very human 
want, left to the procession of ailing human beings who wearily drag their 
various abnormal organs to various offices. How different the attitude of 
the doctor who studies medicine for the benefit of humanity. 

To care for the human relation, to feel as a sacred responsibility the 
insight which such a physician gains into the very springs of each life, to 
recognize the delicate adjustments of body to mind, the keenness of 
suffering having spiritual significations, the man to whom his patients are 
"cases," what can he know of this? 

Women who practice medicine seldom speciaUze, except as their sex 
makes specialization of a sort almost a necessary thing. This may be 
partly because the sex as a whole is come so lately to a realization of itself 
that such specialization is not yet in order. So far their tendency is quite 
of a different sort. Their emotional and sympathetic nature, developed for 
generations at the expense of the rest of their being, is too readily worked 
upon, and the very ease with which they respond to suffering is frequently 
their undoing, professionally and in their own physique. The woman 
who would be a successful physician must be made of sterner stuff, emo- 
tionally, mentally, and physically, than most women. 

Doctor Frances Lewis Bishop owes to a long line of sturdy forbears 
such a spirit and body. She admits no compromise with herself, yet 
admits so much of tolerance for the errors and ills of others. 

Her ancestors on both sides were people of ability on the maternal 
side from England and New England, while her paternal grandfather was 
Scotch and came to America in 1797 to take the presidency of a college in 



26 NOTABLE WOMEN OF a T. LOUIS 

Lexington, Ky. He went later to Oxford, Ohio, as the first president of 
Miami University, and drew there students from the West and South. 

Her father was a minister of the Presybterian Church, as were also 
her brothers. She had the customary training in the public schools 
and after graduating from the high school went to the Miami University, 
thence to Ann Arbor, where she took her degree in 1893. In Ann Arbor 
she was a member of the Delta Gamma. After graduation she had hos- 
pital work, also at Ann Arbor. She began to practice in St. Louis about 
fifteen years ago. For some reason there have not been many women 
attracted to St. Louis as a field for medical work, but she has become well 
established here, doing general practice in internal medicine, and has in 
addition to her private work, with all its opportunity for helpfulness, many 
outside interests. With a staff of assistants she has had charge of the 
"welfare work," both medical and surgical, of a large manufacturing con- 
cern employing one thousand people. This was the first work of this sort 
done in St. Louis, and as the problem was put into her hands to plan out 
in most of its details, she has had unique opportunities. No account of 
the work she is doing would be complete without mention of some of the 
outside offices she holds and affihations she enjoys. She is a member of 
the American Medical Association, Missouri State and St. Louis Medical 
Societies, and at a reorganization of the latter some years ago she was 
chosen a member of its executive board, known as the Medical Council; 
has had a membership upon various committees and has been its corre- 
sponding secretary. She is the only woman who has been upon the Coun- 
cil Board, and is also a member of the American Academy of Medicine. 
As a member of the Executive Board of the St. Louis Society of Social 
Hygiene she has been actively interested in the educational work of this 
organization, also takes an active interest in the Visiting Nurses' Asso- 
ciation. Her wider social service work in this city extends to the Juvenile 
Court and dispensaries and the remarkable preventive work done by her 
in the factories as weU as medical and surgical activities. 

Dr. Bishop is interested in both State and City Anti-Tuberculosis 
Societies, is a member of the Pure Milk Commission, is on the staff of the 
Evening Dispensary for Women, The Provident Association, The Wednes- 
day Club, and the Social Conference of St. Louis. She is also Chairman of 
the Health Department of Women's Clubs of Missouri. The Town Club 
numbers her name on its list. 

Doctor Frances Bishop is the medical adviser of Washington Uni- 
versity of the physical department. 

A strict Presbyterian, as was her grandfather, her strain of preacliing 
blood shows itself in a normal class of forty at the Markham Memorial 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 27 

Sunday School. Tall, erect, with fine color and a good carriage, she has 
an air of self-control. Her ability to inspire confidence at once is a 
most valuable asset. There is nothing obtrusive or self-seeking about her. 
She has the ability to listen much and speak little, and is tolerant of others' 
judgment while confident of her own. A robust sense of humor enables 
her to enjoy her life as she goes, while it does not dull to her the appeal of 
any misery she inay find an opportunity to relieve. There is no woman in 
St. Louis who has a greater chance to be a more useful citizen, and few 
who are more anxious to avail themselves of any such opportunity that 
may come. 



28 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. LOUIS 



MRS. ELISE J. BLATTNER 

MRS. ELISE J. BLATTNER occupies a high position in the lecture 
field in the United States and many foreign countries for her 
interesting and instructive lectures, prepared after many years 
of investigation and study of the "History of Art of all Nations." She has 
appeared on the platform in this country, Germanj', Constantinople, 
Japan and the Philippines. 

Her addresses cover such branches as Landscape in Poetry and Paint- 
ing, An Outline History of Art, The Christ Child in Art, Madonas, The 
Renaissance, Raphael, Music in Art, French Art, German Art, Constanti- 
nople, Wordsworth's Country, Leonardo da Vinci, Modern Art, The Pre- 
Raphaelites, European Cities, Max Klinger, European Cathedrals, Michel- 
angelo, and special lectures on Japan — Country, Life and Customs. 

For her art lectures Mrs. Blattner uses stei-eopticon illustrations, and 
for the Japanese lectures, in addition to these, her daughter. Miss Clara 
Blattner, demonstrates in Japanese costume in an original manner some 
of the following accomplishments: Flower arranging, tea ceremony, sand 
pictures, incense game, classic dances. Miss Clara Blattner speaks Japan- 
ese fluently, and during a residence of more than five years in Japan with 
her mother, made a very careful study of the accomplishments of the 
Japanese women of culture. 

Mrs. EUse Blattner's special lectures on Japan describe and illustrate 
the Japanese home and its mistress, Japanese women and girls, flower 
arrangements, gardens, festivals, holidays, temples and shrines, Japanese 
art and art industries, amusements, theaters, dances, games and the classic 
drama of Japan. Her lectures are indorsed by men and women living in 
the principal cities of the world, occupying the highest positions in uni- 
versities, embassies and clubs. 

Mrs. Blattner was Miss Elise Jecko. Born in St. Louis in 1854, she 
lived in tliis city attending school until her graduation from the High 
School, where she was offered a scholarship at Washington University, 
an advantage of which she did not, however, avail herself. She was always 
interested in art. In fact, at the High School her teachers, recognizing 
her unusual ability, advised her to follow this line of work. In 1889 Mrs. 
Blattner made her first journey to Europe, where she spent some time in 
Italy and much time in Germany, attending lectures at the University of 
BerUn, by the men who were the most prominent in those days in the 
department of the History of Art. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. ELISE J. BLATTNER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 29 

Hermann Grimm interested a number of his associate or assistant 
professors and instructors in her behalf. Wliile working with Professor 
Grimm she would take her little daughter with her, where in a corner of 
his study, in what he called "Clarchen's Window," she would amuse 
herself. 

The various studies which she took up at this time were those which 
she has found since to have been of the greatest importance — "Quellen- 
kunde" Archaeology, History of Art, and personal instructions in the gal- 
leries and museums of the Old World. 

In 1896 Mrs. Blattner went abroad, remaining a year and a half, going 
back in the summers of '98 and '99. From 1900 until 1906 she spent the 
greater part of her time traveling in foreign countries. 

In the early '80s lectures on art were little known in this country. 
The dry-plate process of photography was new and photographs of Euro- 
pean art treasures were not to be had except in Europe. Mrs. Blattner 
became interested in photography and assisted her husband, who was a 
very skillful amateur photographer, in making lantern slides from engrav- 
ings, etchings and from the contents of the St. Louis Museum of Fine 
Arts, for use in her talks on art. She was the first person to use lantern 
illustrations for art lectures west of the Alleghenies. 

Returning from her first trip abroad she brought over 2,000 photo- 
graphs of art treasures of the Old World from which lantern slides were 
made. These formed the nucleus of her large and interesting collection, 
now numbering many thousands. While in Berlin, Mrs. Blattner suc- 
ceeded in overcoming Professor Grimm's objection to the lantern as an aid 
to art study, and persuaded him to have a fine one installed in the Uni- 
versity of Berlin. He later became a most enthusiastic advocate of the 
lantern. 

After Mrs. Blattner's daughter was graduated from Wellesley College, 
they both took a course in the University of Berlin, which was the first 
time in the liistory of the institution that a mother and daughter were 
students at the same time. 

Mrs. Blattner's engagements for professional tours began about 1893, 
and during this time she has had many interesting experiences. While 
lecturing in Constantinople the Sultan was so afraid of assassination that 
no lanterns otiier than oil were allowed lest chemicals of a dangerous char- 
ater be gotten into the country under pretext of being used for lantern 
purposes. 

In the Philippines she has lectured out in the open under the banana 
trees. During their stay in that country it was necessary to place their 



30 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

wearing apparel over night in boxes made of kiri wood to prevent the 
moisture in the air making their clothing too damp to wear. 

Mrs. Blattner lectured in Japan before large and intellectual audi- 
ences, societies of artists, the leading schools, literary clubs, foreign as well 
as Japanese, the latter including the Imperial Princesses as patronesses, 
also members of the diplomatic circles. On some occasions she has deliv- 
ered as manj' as three addresses in one day. 

While there Mrs. Blattner occupied a two-storied house, but the ordi- 
nary Japanese houses are one-storied only. The Japanese wear the tabis, or 
socks, instead of shoes, indoors. The floor coverings of all their homes are 
mats three feet in size. Instead of saying a room is so-and-so-wide, one 
says in Japan it is two or three mats, as the case may be. These mats are 
put down like a stiff upholstering, and are easily damaged by the heels 
on shoes — in two or three weeks being completely ruined — so the custom 
prevails for men and women to remove their shoes before entering. 

In the kitchens and porches the floors are left uncovered, and light 
shoes are worn. 

Preconceived ideas are frequently very difTicult from the material- 
ization. In Turkey Mrs. Blattner visited some of the harems. Instead 
of finding the women very attractive and coquettish, they were often 
fat and homely. However, some were graceful, pretty, and intelligent; 
they could speak French, and converse on different topics, and in 
one place while visiting a Persian home she was invited to the basement to 
see their fancy work. Each had a loom for weaving, the work being 
done in the cellar, because the temperature was more even — and some- 
what damp. The looms stand upright, and with enormous shears they 
clip and clip what looks like a great waste until the finished rugs are 
smooth, thick and soft. It takes about four years to make a four- 
foot rug. 

Mrs. Blattner's daughter, while in Japan, learned to do the most intri- 
cate weaving with gold threads, which is an ancient art that only some of 
the most aristocratic families from the southern part of Japan in Tokio 
have preserved. This was handed down from family to family — from 
the Daimyo Prince ruler — and is now known to very few. 

Mrs. Blattner's lectures are delightful — her manner of delivery is the 
most polished imaginable; her voice is pleasing, resonant and clear. One 
becomes fascinated as well as deeply interested in her explanations, which 
arc very valuable because of the information imparted in such a clever and 
entertaining manner. 




WHITING PHOTO 



MRS. ANITA CALVERT-BOURGEOISE 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 31 



MRS. ANITA CALVERT BOURGEOISE 

"Those who do not look upon themselves as a link connecting the past with' the; future do 
not perform their duty to the world." 

THE only woman genealogist, or historian of ancestry, in this State, is 
Mrs. Anita Calvert Bourgeoise. Born October 8, 1879, in Lone Dell, 
Mo., she is a descendant on her mother's side as well as her father's 
of the royal families of Bourbon and Le Tournure of France. Her two 
grandmothers on the paternal side were Mary Ann Buchanan and Rebecca 
Tournure, both well remembered by many St. Louisans. She is the 
great-grand niece of ex-President Buchanan and a direct descendant of 
the Baltimore Calverts. 

At an early age Anita Calvert was adopted by an uncle. Earl M. Fair- 
fax, who gave her every opportunity in the way of an education, a part of 
which was received at Wellesley College, where she took a special course 
in genealog}% and later entered the Girls' Finisliing School at Hartford- 
bury, Lancastershire, England. She is a graduate of the Massachusetts 
State Law School, being one of the first women in the New England States 
to advocate the juvenile law. 

By doing newspaper work she made her way through law school 
because of her uncle's disapproval of women taking up this study, and 
experienced many interesting occurrences while so engaged. 

Just before a presidential election in New York, Anita Calvert heard 
of a Tammany meeting that the newspapers were anxious to report, but 
to wliich their representatives were denied admission. Presenting her- 
self to the editor of the New York Journal she asked for an assignment 
covering this political work. 

"Why, what can j'ou know of the record of any of these politicians 
and how could you get into such a meeting?" he demanded, looking her 
over witheringly. 

"Well, I can repeat what I hear, and may be able to hear what 
another could not," she instantly answered. 

"All right — here's your chance, but I must have a report of that 
meeting." 

With this she was dismissed, and hurrying to the rear of the building 
where the conference was to be held, climbed the fire escape, hid in a 
locker in the room with the help of the janitress, and made such an 
excellent report of the transactions of the meeting that today an ex-Gov- 
ernor of New York holds as one of his most treasured possessions the 
white sailor hat, white shirtwaist and skirt on which she took notes. 



32 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

In her hurry to reach the building slie had forgotten to supply her- 
self with paper, and, quick with her wits, as she always is, began to cover 
her hat and clothing with such hierogljpliics that on returning to the 
editor's office he was in dismay and doubt that she would ever bring order 
out of such confusion. 

Mrs. Bourgeoise has stumped the country for two presidential candi- 
dates, William Jennings Bryan and Woodrow Wilson, and was the only 
woman who took part in the campaign of Woodrow Wilson in Missouri. 
He wrote her after the election as follows: 

"I want to express my appreciation of the active and intelligent work 
you have done. As a leader of the party 1 feel that I owe you a direct per- 
sonal expression of sincere thanks. 

(Signed) "WOODROW WILSON." 

In the interest of woman's suffrage Mrs. Bourgeoise has traveled 
102,000 miles in the last four years. She has spoken before the Senate of 
four States, and whUe addressing one meeting was told by the Secretary 
of State — who was much opposed to suffrage — that as soon as the 
women of his State produced something they would receive the franchise. 
To this she repUed: "The women of your State, in fact of the world, pro- 
duced first the men of the world — who can produce more?" 

Ever since her first newspaper experience Mrs. Bourgeoise has looked 
forward to one day owning her own paper, and in March, 1913, ful- 
filled tills long cherished ambition by planning from its very foundation 
"The Invincible Magazine of History and Biography," the only publication 
of its kind edited by a woman. 

Mrs. Bourgeoise' aim through her magazine is to promote the stand- 
ard of American aristocracy of birth by bringing to light many hun- 
dreds of pedigrees of prominent men and women in the high places of 
America today. The coats-of-arms of hundreds of colonial American fam- 
ilies will be shown and the right of their descendants to bear these arms 
will be demonstrated. 

Individual genealogical biographical sketches will be elaborately pub- 
lished in "The Invincible" with rare and interesting illustrations; Anglo- 
American pedigrees brought out serially. 

These will give all proofs establishing the ancestries of the Amer- 
icans with the European lineage, and will be one of the first authoritative 
publications of identified Anglo-American families. 

Special features of importance will be published, family histories with 
official proofs constituting claims to patriotic societies, muster rolls in 
Colonial service, muster rolls in the Revolution, not accessible in pub- 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 33 

lished histories, and marriage records from unfamiliar sources in the 
Colonial and Revolutionarj' period. 

For those who do not know their ancestry "The Invincible" will be a 
source of information, as it will publish the results of many years of 
investigation by expert antiquarian investigators who have been successful 
in establishing the identity of many American settlers. As to family bibles, 
records and old wills, a section of "The Invincible" is dedicated to the 
publication of copies of these to insure their preservation should they 
be lost, as is often the case. 

Subscribers and others owning old portraits and heirlooms will be 
offered the privilege of having them reproduced in "The Invincible" when 
of sufficient interest. 

Manuscript records of every kind are interesting to Mrs. Bourgeoise, 
who is anxious to hear regarding the traditional liistories of individual 
ancestors. There is an exchange where questions on genealogical matters 
will be answered. Also cuts and charts issued — the latter being made by 
Mr. E. S. Lewis, who is an authority and a regular contributor — making it 
unique and fascinating, especially to those who wish to trace their family 
histories, and Mrs. Bourgeoise has been unusually successful in tracing 
claims where others have failed. She has traveled all over this and for- 
eign countries looking up family histories. 

The "Invincible" magazine has therefore been inaugurated to meet 
the demand for a publication devoted to the Colonial period, with Colonial 
lords of manors in America, its Colonial dames, its Colonial warsmen, its 
settlers of the West and their ancestors of the East. Colonial doorways 
will be opened to give twentieth-century descendants charming retrospec- 
tive glimpses down long vistas of time, and crossing the trackless sea will 
follow the family histories past moated battlements into veritable ancient 
royal castles, in many cases covering tliree centuries in this country. 

Mrs. Bourgeoise has also become the editor of the "Universal Cause" 
magazine, taking up both sides of the suffrage question, the first number 
of which appeared January 1, 1914. 

Anita Calvert's first husband was George M. Tyler, an attorney of New 
York. They were married in 1900 and had one daughter, Anita Fairfax, 
who died at the early age of five years. After being a widow for seven 
years, Mrs. Tyler married Mr. A. A. Bourgeoise, who had been her first 
sweetheart. He is a member of the St. Louis Symphony Society and a 
good musician. 

Mrs. Bourgeoise is a brunette of slight build, quick at repartee, a good 
story-teller, vivacious and energetic. Interested in all movements of the 
times, she keeps herself well posted as to the possibilities of the future, as 
well as the actualities of the past. 



34 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



M' 



MRS. LULU KUNKEL-BURG 

■RS. LULU KUNKEL-BURG was for six years the first violinist of 
the St. Louis Symphony Society, as well as the only woman who 
ever played in this capacity for that organization. Following 
this engagement she has been their soloist on different occasions. 

At the Forest Park University she has been a teacher of this instru- 
ment for twelve years, and for the same time violinist of the First 
Presbyterian Church. She has also taught in the Missouri Conservatory 
for five years. 

While a pupil of Ysaye, for four years, in the Conservatoire Royal de 
Musique, Brussels, Belgium, she was one of the winners of the first prize 
among forty students. As a soloist she has appeared before every club 
of importance in this city, beginning her public appearance at the age of 
eight years, and has also given concerts and assisted in those given by the 
Symphony Society, Morning Choral, Liederkranz, Rubinstein and Friday 
Clubs, and musicales in private homes, which is one of her special lines 
of work. 

With ease she executes the most intricate and dangerous technical 
flights. Her originality in intei'pretation is distinctive. To the listener 
her violin speaks with an intense sympathy and awakens a thrill of the 
senses as only such an instrument skillfully handled can arouse. Her 
playing makes the violin respond to every emotion of her temperament 
in tones of the finest shading. 

Lulu Kunkel-Burg was born in Cincinnati in 1877 — the daughter of 
William Kunkel and Lena Frederick. Her grandparents moved to St. 
Louis when she was about seven years old, and her uncle, Oscar Frederick, 
who was a violinist, traveling with different orchestras, knowing that she 
had a talent for music, offered to give her the opportunity of developing 
any such faculty. 

She came to live with her grandparents a year later and they bought 
her a violin, wanting her to learn to play well, so she could make herself 
independent. It was a great day when her uncle took her over the big 
city looking for a suitable fiddle, but she pleaded with him not to buy her 
a fiddle because she "liked bananas so much better," and she "didn't like 
a fiddle anj'way." A boy who lived next door to her home in Cincinnati 
was learning to play, practicing for hours, and she would stand before 
the door mocking him, making horrid sounds as a vent of her dislike of 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. LULU KUNKEL-BURG 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 35 

the violin. But her uncle persisted, and the violin was bought and she 
was set to work. 

Many thanks are due to Otto Knaeble, who took such pains in teach- 
ing her from the time she was eight until seventeen. He was the 
leader of the Grand Opera House orchestra at the time. For his instruc- 
tion he would accept no remuneration, and she feels very grateful to him 
for his kindness. 

She still felt this dislike for the fiddle until she was about twelve 
years old, and then began to have an ambition to work hard, and make 
of herself a great performer, if possible. Her first public appearance was 
before the Y. M. C. A. in 1885; after that she played before different 
lodges and churches. For some of these she received five dollars. Then 
she began to realize what it might mean to her to be successful — what 
a satisfaction she might derive from her talents, both financially and 
otherwise. 

While Ovide Musin was in St. Louis on a concert tour, she was sent 
to play before him to get an opinion as to whether she ought to have 
further advantages. He advised that after some time she would be 
benefited by a course in one of the European conservatories. When the 

time came, her uncle could not afford to do this, so some of the musicians 

Robyn, Kroeger, Epstein and G. A. Buder — arranged for a testimonial 
concert which netted her about $600. This paid the expenses of the 
journey, and she entered the conservatory in Brussels — then seventeen 
years old — to study under Marchot. The first two years she found 
extremely difficult — the new methods of teaching — the realization of what 
was material — the adjusting of new ideals — and the development of her- 
self temperamentally — were a new experience which in the following two 
j^ears she found much more satisfactory. 

It took four years to go through the concourse, at the close of which 
she was the fortunate winner of the highest honors awarded by the con- 
servatory. When she returned to America she became a pupil of Max 
Bendix for six months, who was engaged here by the World's Fair 
officials. A recital at Memorial Hall was her first venture in concert 
work after her European study. This was immediately followed by an 
engagement as first violinist with the St. Louis Symphony Society, where 
she remained six years. This she calls the most fascinating work of her 
life; it was most satisfying, and gave scope for her wide range of 
expression. 

When Max Zach was made director he had adverse opinions about 
women being engaged with such a great number of men and declared 



36 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



liimself very frankly, which ended the engagement. Now in London the 
experiment is about to be tried of having women musicians in great 
symphony orchestras. George H. Shapario has introduced this innova- 
tion at a concert in Queen's Hall, because he wants to "prove that woman's 
inclusion in an orchestra does not detract from the strength and 
efficiency of the playing, but rather increases the finish and sensitiveness." 
He believes that "women can introduce the element of expression into 
orchestral music that is impossible from the most experienced organiza- 
tions composed solely of men." In America this practice has not found 
much favor, but in Germany there are many women included in the 
leading orchestras. 

Mrs. Burg has been very successful as a teacher at the Forest Park 
University, of which Mrs. Anna Sneed Cairns is the president. At the 
First Presbyterian Church she plays every Sunday morning and evening. 
With her in this work, outside of the regular choir, is Mrs. Wilhelmina 
Lowe-Speyer, who was for many years the harpist for the St. Louis 
Symphony Society, and is now playing in the orchestra of which her 
husband is the leader at the Columbia Theatre. 

Just before Mrs. Burg's marriage she was offered a position in New 
York on the vaudeviUe stage by H. M. Blossom, Jr., the author of "Yankee 
Consul," "Checkers" and other plays. It was a great temptation, but she 
realized that if she chose a public career she might after all miss what 
was worth most in life, and gave her hand in marriage to Frederick Burg 
in February, 1902, who is with PhiUp Burg in the grocery business. They 
have one little daughter, Virginia, six years old. 

When Mrs. Burg first took up church work, largely tlirough the 
influence of H. M. Blossom, Sr. and Homer Moore, to both of whom she 
acknowledges thanks, Mr. McMillian was so enthused with her playing 
that he told her whenever she would find a real fine violin she must buy 
it to please him. She felt a hesitancy in doing this, but shortly after his 
death Mrs. McMillian insisted that she carry out her husband's wishes and 
accordingly a thousand dollar instrument was purchased of Italian make 

a "Costa" violin, which is cherished greatly by the fortunate possessor. 

Mr. Emil Karst, the musician, owns several fine violins, and Kubelik is 
the possessor of the "Emperor," the finest Stradivarius in the world, which 
he values at one hundred thousand dofiars. 

Mr. Burg is a member of the St. Louis Amateur Orchestra, so their 
tastes being in unison, much amusement is derived from their combined 
talents. Mrs. Burg, in addition to her regular engagements, gives private 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF STL0V18 37 

lessons in her home. Before going on her study trip to Europe Mr. Abe 
Epstein played sonatas with her every Saturday afternoon for many 
years. This was of the greatest assistance and is very much appreciated 
by her. 

Mrs. Burg includes in her repertoire selections from Wagner, Wien- 
iawski, Saint-Saens, Bruch, Lalo, Mendelssohn and other great composers. 
Mrs. Burg is a brilliant performer. Much is said in praise of her marvelous 
left hand — the accurate intonation in spite of speed. She is an attractive, 
vivacious brunette, showing the artistic and temperamental nature in her 
face as well as in her music. Mrs. Kunkel-Burg is not related to the 
musical family of Kunkels living in St. Louis. 



38 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MRS. SAMUEL R. BURGESS 

MRS. SAMUEL R. BURGESS has held the chess championship, 
among women in the United States, since March, 1907, ha\'ing 
won it from Mrs. Clarence Frey, then li-sang in Newark, N. J., 
but a member of the Woman's Chess Club of New York. The match 
was played at the club headquarters of the Martha Washington Hotel in 
New York. For this ^ictor>' Mrs. Burgess was awarded a gold medal, 
very beautiful in design and workmanship. 

Soon after tliis she was challenged by Mrs. Natalie Nixdorff, of 
Cambridge, Mass., but did not make arrangements to play until the fol- 
lowing year, when she was again the winner — four to one. Another and 
larger gold pin was presented her, wdth a shield, enameled in colors on a 
chess board surmounted by a crown, exquisitely lettered and engraved. 

Mrs. Burgess was since challenged by Mrs. Lynn, of Chicago, but at 
the time agreed upon Mrs. Lynn was unable to keep the appointment. 

Mrs. Nixdorff, being very anxious for another match, has again 
challenged Mrs. Burgess, who has accepted, but recently the game was 
indefinitely postponed. 

The invention of the game of chess has been ascribed to every nation- 
ality, as well as to different indixiduals — King Solomon; the wife of Ravan, 
King of Ceylon; the philosopher Xerxes; Hermes, Aristotle, Semiramis, 
Zenobia, and others. 

The Chinese claim that it was invented in the reign of Kao-Tsu, after- 
wards Emperor of Kiang-Nang, by a mandarin named Han-sing, who 
wanted to amuse his soldiers when in winter quarters. The game is called 
by them "choke-choo-hong-ki," "the play of the science of war." But tlie 
most credence is placed on the view that gives India as the birthplace. 

The first modern international chess tournament was held in London 
in 1851, and was the forerunner of similar contests held all over the 
world. Since 1890 cable matches have been played annually between 
representatives of English and American universities; in England chess 
matches have been played every year between Oxford and Cambridge. 

The first known writer on chess was Jacobus de Cessolis, whose chief 
purpose was to teach morals, although he does explain the moves of the 
chessmen. He was a Dominican friar, whose treatise was wTitten before 
the year 1200, being afterwards translated into French and Enghsh. 

Germany has produced great chess players — Tarrasch, Lipke, Fritz 
Barbeleben, Walbrodt, Mieses, Lasker, Steinitz, Teichman, and others. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. SAMUEL R. BURGESS 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 39 

Paul Morphy was one of the greatest of American players. Pillsbury, 
Frank R. Marshall, and the Cuban player, Capablanca, are also among the 
most noted. 

Mrs. Burgess was born in Ogden, Utah; her family moved to St. 
Joseph, Mo., while she was an infant. Living there until she was ten 
years of age they came to St. Louis, where she attended the Franklin and 
liigh schools, graduating from the latter in 1875 as valedictorian of her 
class. She taught school and music for one year in Montgomery County, 
and was there married to Mr. Samuel Rostron Burgess, who Avas born 
in St. Louis and lived here all his life. Mr. Burgess was the secretary of 
the Boland Book Company until three years ago, when he retired. 

Mrs. Burgess does not remember when she began playing chess, 
having been, taught by her father. Dr. James X. Allen, an Englishman, 
from Lancashire, who was very fond of the game. He was a surgeon 
in the Union Army. Much of his leisure time was devoted to playing 
chess. He taught his little daughter and insisted that she play a game 
at noon hour while attending school, and she remembers frequently after 
finishing she would have to run all the way back to school to be on time. 
She became very enthusiastic and always played her best. Now she 
plays to Avin, not for the sake of any prize, but because she loves the 
recreation, and has the faculty of concentrating her mind entirely on what 
she is doing. 

After she finished school, and until about twelve years after her 
marriage, she did not play chess, but when her brother, a lad of sixteen 
years, came to visit tliem he was very anxious to try his skill against her. 
While she felt that she did not "even remember the moves," she asked 
Mr. Burgess to bring home a set of chessmen from the book store, and 
the next day played seventeen games with her brother, losing only the 
first. It was then Mr. Burgess, realizing the possibilities for entertainment 
and mental stimulus to be derived from chess, undertook a serious study 
of it by reading the chess primer diligently. Now he is quite a strong 
player and as much interested in the game as her father was. But her 
brother has never invited her to play again with liim since the day of 
his defeat. 

It was after her husband became interested that the different chess 
players in North St. Louis assembled and organized a club known as 
"The North St. Louis Chess Club." Mrs. Burgess was the only woman 
member and played against five men, and often eight. She won the first 
prize three times, and the second once, in four tourneys; one of the prizes 
being a handsome shopping bag with gold mountings, beautifully engraved. 



40 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

In 1901 a Woman's Chess Club was founded and held its meetings once 
each week at the rooms of the Office Men's Club on Washington Avenue. 

Mrs. Coldwell, a visitor from Canada, aided greatly in the organiza- 
tion, having been the first one to suggest tliis move. Miss Fitzgerald, 
daughter of Bishop Fitzgerald; Mrs. Woodward, wife of Professor 
Woodward; Mrs. Bouton, Miss Overall, daughter of Judge John Overall, 
and Mrs. S. B. Burgess were the members. A tourney was played in 
which Mrs. Burgess won first prize with a score of nine and one-half 
wins and one-half game lost. This club existed for one winter only. 

The "West End" Chess Club was organized in 1907 at the home of 
W. F. Burden, 5029 Maple Avenue. The charter members were W. F. 
Burden, A. A. Hardy, E. F. Schrader, J. D. Bichardsons, J. G. Nix, P. B. 
Eversden and H. S. Frazer, M. D. Dr. Frazer was appointed secretary 
and held that office three years. The members number about twenty 
just at present. It has been the courtesy of the club to elect Mrs. 
Burgess and Mrs. Hewit alternately to the office of vice-president, they 
being the only active women members. Mr. S. B. Burgess is the presi- 
dent, Mrs. Hewit the vice-president, with Mr. Lee L. Backer as secretary. 

Mrs. Hewit ranks second to Mrs. Burgess among the women players 
in St. Louis. She plan's a brilliant game and never misses the Monday 
evening meetings of the West End Chess Club, at the Cabanne Branch 
Library. Mrs. J. H. Hewit was Miss Eleanor Tomlinson, of Connecticut. 
Her father, like Mrs. Burgess', was a surgeon in the army and taught her 
to play while she was a child. She is much admired and Uked by the 
chess players for her charming personality and skillful game. 

A. F. Budolph, also a member of the West End Club, and an ex- 
president, has become noted as a problem composer. He has been success- 
ful in composing two world's records in problems, something that has 
not been done before. In a problem, the composer deliberately places 
the men — arranging them in such a manner that he can announce that 
they may be solved in a certain number of moves. There are different 
kinds of problems — direct mate, conditional, self mate, retractive, etc. 

Mr. Budolph plays an aggressive game, and prefers the unusual 
openings rather than the more customary ones. His favorites are the 
Scotch and Danish gambits for attack, and the center counter and Greco 
counter defenses. Mr. Rudolph's greatest pleasure lies in the composition 
of problems, rather than the game itself. 

The club has been having two handicap tournaments a year. In 
November, 1909, a loving cup was purchased by the members and put up 
for the first prize of each tournament. Mrs. Burgess has twice been the 
winner. The following members have won the cup and had their names 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 41 

engraved on it: A. S. Moise, S. R. Burgess, J. A. Kress, L. L. Backer and 
W. F. Burden. The winter tourney, 1913-14, is just about completed, 
and the score will be published in the chess columns of the dailj- papers. 
Mrs. Burgess has also won second and third prizes several times. The 
cup will be presented to the member winning it three times. 

The "St. Louis Chess CUib" lias been in existence over forty years. 
There are now more than fifty members enrolled. Rev. William Smith 
is the president; John L. Stange, vice-president; James D. Cathey, second 
vice-president, and Ben R. Foster, secretary and treasurer. Mrs. Burgess 
is an honorary member. They are located at 1201-13 Liggett Building. 
This club is composed altogether of men. 

In New York there are many chess players among women who 
maintain a "Woman's Chess Club" in the Martha Wasliington Hotel. In 
May, 1906, invitations were sent out through the United States to all of 
the women chess players who had any standing at all. In answer to 
this the competitors met in New York at the stated time and played a 
tournament, the winner to have the title of "The American Chess Cham- 
pion." Mrs. Burgess, on account of the serious illness of her mother, 
could not attend. 

The championship was carried off by Mrs. Frey, of Newark, N. J., 
who was a member of the Woman's Chess Club of New York. Her 
husband is also prominent in chess circles in Newark, N. J., and it was 
after she won this championship that Mrs. Burgess captured the prize 
from her. Mrs. Frey has been dead about three years, being a little over 
forty years old at the time of her death. The Woman's Chess Club of 
New York has a tournament every winter. In 1907 Mrs. Burgess went 
to Brooklyn to watch the international game between the United States 
and England. Mr. Helmes, of the "Brooklyn Eagle," which contains the 
chess news of the East, and Mr. Cassell, the editor of the "American Chess 
Bulletin," of New York, arranged for Mrs. Burgess to play a championship 
match with Mrs. Frey. 

The details were arranged by Mr. Burgess and Mr. Frey, assisted by 
Mr. Helmes, deciding that the first winner of four games was to be the 
champion. Mr. Helmes arranged for the scores, clocks, etc., ruling that 
either fifteen or twenty moves be made in each hour. Twenty were 
agreed on — one game to be played the first day, skipping the second, and 
on the third day two games were to be played, and so on until the match 
was completed, each game to be finished at one sitting. The parlors of 
the Martha Washington Hotel were arranged for the match, as the 
Woman's Chess Club had the use of them. The longest game lasted 
four and one-half hours. Mrs. Burgess won. The pin presented her 



42 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

on this occasion was a gold-enameled chess board, draped with the 
American flag and words "Woman's Championship of the United States." 

Mrs. Burgess claims that practice with B. H. Colby, a member of the 
St. Louis Chess Club, did much to advance her knowledge of the game. 
She once played with Maroczy, the Hungarian champion, during the 
latter's trip out West, and also played twice with the late Max Judd, 
former United States Consul-General at Vienna. 

Mrs. Burgess plays a very conservative game, as differing from an 
aggressive one. She is very deliberate, rarely ever making a false move. 

When Mrs. Burgess returned, after capturing the championship from 
Mrs. Nixdorff, a reception was arranged by the West End Club, at the 
honae of Mrs. Hewit, on which occasion she was presented with a beautiful 
gold watch, the presentation speech being made by J. G. Nix. 

Mrs. Burgess has five children, who all play chess "a little," but only 
the oldest son, Samuel Allen, plays a really good game, ha\'ing won in 
simultaneous play against Pillsbury, wliile he was yet a student at Wash- 
ington University. Not one of the children, hoWever, are fond of chess, 
and only Mr. and Mrs. Burgess belong to the chess clubs. 

Mrs. Burgess is a plain, straightforward, sensible, clear-headed woman, 
absolutely without anj' pretense or desire for notoriety. She is a delightful 
companion and a devoted mother. 




MURILLO PHOTO 



MRS. ANNA SNEED-CAIRNS 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 43 



MRS. ANNA SNEED CAIRNS 

MRS. ANNA SNEED CAIRNS, the president of Forest Park Uni- 
versity, is a daughter of the Rev. Samuel K. Sneed, of Louisville, 
Ky., and Rachel Crosby, of Milford, N. H. 

Mrs. Cairns' father was a minister in the Presbyterian Church for 
over fifty years. He was responsible for a great deal of the pioneer work 
done in Kentucky, Illinois, Iowa and other States. Mrs. Cairns' admira- 
tion for her father was great. After her marriage she retained his name 
and called herself Anna Sneed Cairns. 

Her mother, Mrs. Rachel Sneed, earned the money for her education by 
teaching school. Capt. Josiah Crosby was her grandfather. He and his 
four sons fought at the battle of Bunker Hill. The Crosby family were 
noted as teachers. Alpheus Crosby wrote the first Greek grammar. Dr. 
Dixey Crosby and Chancellor Crosby, of New York, stood high as 
educators. 

Mrs. Cairns is proud of her ancestrj'. From her father she inherits 
the courageous spirit of the Kentuckians, and from her mother the stern 
Puritan characteristics of New England folks, as well as her love of 
teaching. 

Born in New Albany, Ind., in 1841, Anna Sneed Cairns has spent a 
long and useful life in building up a successful career. She showed strong 
literary tastes at a very early age. With undaunted enthusiasm and 
determination she studied languages, literature, science, etc., until at the 
present day she ranks among the first as a thinker, critic and educator. 

At seventeen she graduated from Monticello Seminary and began to 
teach. Her first step in this direction was to apply to the Superintendent 
of Public Schools in St. Louis. But on discovering that Bible teaching 
was not permitted, nor the offering up of a prayer, she refused to consider 
any position he might offer her. The only textbook that would have to 
be taught in any school where she might be employed must be the Bible. 

In 1861, during the first j'car of the war, she taught in Lexington, Mo. 
But this school was closed when Price's soldiers retreated, after the battle 
of Boonville, to Lexington, and she, as well as five other teachers, were 
obliged to pass through the Confederate and Union lines in returning home. 

All the private and public schools in the State were closed, except 
St. Louis, and as she could not conscientiously teach in the public schools, 
nothing was left to do but open one of her own. This she did, and in 
November, 1861, "without a cent of money or a foot of ground," Kirkwood 
Seminary was founded. Only seven students enrolled on the opening day. 



44 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

This school stood out in the woods and was a small frame building, 
eighteen by twentj'-eight feet. It was built for her. The next year more 
spacious quarters were needed. Her older sister, Mary, took charge of 
the primary department and the music. The following year another 
sister, Harriet, was engaged to assist in teaching. Later, in 1866, a frame 
building was erected that would accommodate one hundred pupils. Mrs. 
Cairns says she "breathes a prayer" whenever she mentions the name of 
Hudson E. Bridge, who loaned her the money to carry out this enterprise. 

The people of Kirkwood were opposed to her, so all kinds of schools 
were opened in opposition, a Catholic, Public and Episcopal. All of them 
had their opening on the same day. Rain poured in torrents and the 
outlook was very gloomy. The year before she had boasted of seventy-six 
scholars and on this day there were but nineteen day and five boarding 
pupils. The public school was the only one beside hers that survived. 
In 1868 a charter was issued to lurkwood Seminar j'. 

A stone dwelling with four acres of ground was bought in 1873. A 
large, three-story structure was put up in 1881. Later it became necessary 
to erect an addition to the stone building in order to accommodate the 
boarding pupils. 

The people of Kirkwood brought lawsuits against Mrs. Cairns for 
different reasons, so she concluded to sell out and move to St. Louis. She 
succeeded in getting $35,000 for her property there. Then the plat of 
ground was selected where the school now stands; that is, six acres adjoin- 
ing Forest Park. Mr. Henry Shaw, the noted philanthropist and founder 
of Shaw's Garden, offered her four acres of ground, but in the same 
week he died. 

On New Year's Eve, 1889, she took possession of the piece of land then 
used for farming purposes and began planning for the building of the 
massive castellated structure which is now Forest Park University. In 
1890-91, the main part was erected. This M'ill always stand as a tribute 
to the memory of her husband, John G. Cairns, the architect, whom she 
married in 1884. The commencement exercises in 1891 were held in 
the new school. 

When her hopes were at their highest she went through the most 
trying ordeal of her life. The corporation that had given notes, secured 
by mortgage upon Kirkwood Seminary, defaulted on those notes for 
second and third pajanents, and Mrs. Cairnes found herself with a debt 
of over $50,000. For five years she was constantly meeting notes in 
the bank with interest at eight per cent, paying a little on each, renewing 
them and going through the same struggle every day. She realized in 
these five years, more than at any other time, what privation meant — 
even her lunches were meager in order to save to make up the interest 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 45 

nionej-. She carried in her storm buggy from Third Street to the University 
all the provisions used in her establishment, sometimes doing tliis when 
the thermometer registered zero. Mrs. Cairns never took any stipulated 
salary from the proceeds of her school. Her one object and purpose was 
to establish a substantial Christian university for women in this part 
of the country. For two years she did not buy a new dress or hat, but 
she had two friends who stood by her in all her struggles, indorsing all 
her notes. They were Miss Ellen J. McKee and Melvin L. Gray, who 
was the guardian of the author, Eugene Field. She says on one dark 
da3' when her creditors were about to crush her and she was afraid her 
cherished hopes would fail, Miss McKee gave her $5,000 to face these 
claims. Mrs. Cairns rose up in the fullness of her heart and sang the 
one hundred and twenty-fourth Psalm. This good friend gave her about 
$10,000 at different times until the loan was reduced to $25,000. Then 
she paid off $5,000 each year until the World's Fair year, when she leased 
the main building of the university, and cleared off the remainder of 
the debt. The McKee Gymnasium was then built for $5,500, of which 
about one-half was donated by Miss McKee. In 1893 the College of 
Liberal Arts was organized by a charter granted by the State of Missouri. 
The previous one had been for a seminary for twentj'-five years. 

There was a lack of transportation, at least what Mrs. Cairns con- 
sidered a proper means of reaching such a school, from the city. Wagon- 
ettes and horses, crossing the park, made connections with the street car 
terminus hourly, but what she wanted was to have the cars run all the 
way out to the universitj% and began working to that end. She interested 
the Mayor, the property owners and the different commissioners in her 
plan, also the railroad presidents. Tliis was to have a railroad encircling 
the whole of Forest Park. Through the Board of Public Improvements 
up to the City Council, through its committee, and to a favorable vote 
in the Council, it was carried. After going to the House of Delegates 
it lay for a long time. 

The property owners, getting impatient at tliis delay, tliought, in order 
to hurry matters along, they would give a wine supper to the Railroad 
Committee of the House of Delegates. But this was not exactly in accord- 
ance with Mrs. Cairns' strict temperance sentiments, and she proposed that 
she be allowed to give the dinner at her university. The well-known 
local politician, Jim Cronin, heading tlie committee of seven, two of 
whom had already gotten drunk, went out to the school for dinner. It 
was a good one and they complimented it, but added, "to think of passing 
such a bill on coffee and ice cream only!" Mrs. Cairns was prepared to 
take them over the proposed route, but they declined, saying that they 
would vote on it favorably, which they did. But when it came up to the 



46 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



Mayor, who had been defeated himself, he, in his disappointment, vetoed 
every bill put before him, and unfortunately this was one of them. She 
went to work on a new one, which would take another two years before 
it could go through. Again it failed, but Jim Cronin and his men felt 
ashamed of themselves and promised her that it would be passed. And 
it was. 

Mrs. Cairns believes in equal rights for women. In 1897 she made a 
splendid appeal in the Senate Chamber in Jefferson City in favor of an 
amendment which she had introduced in the Legislature to strike out 
the word "male" from the constitution. She wanted to have some say 
as to what disposition should be made with her money, and who should 
represent her in the State Legislature and Congress. 

President Cairns has taken a deep and active interest in prohibition 
work. In connection with the Women's Christian Temperance Union 
and Mrs. H. H. Wagoner, the first president of the St. Louis branch, she 
did much towards its progress. 

She was appointed legislative superintendent of the Missouri State 
W. C. T. U., and was the first president of the St. Louis District Union. 
Her sister, Mrs. Harriet Worthington, was made superintendent of scien- 
tific instruction, and under the leadership of these women the scientific 
temperance law of Missouri was obtained. 

For six years a struggle was made for the submission of a prohibition 
amendment. One year after another Mrs. Cairns gathered petitions, going 
before the Legislature only to be defeated. She stumped the State of 
Missouri, speaking at the great Sam Jones' camp meetings that were 
held in fourteen counties. She has spoken alongside of many temperance 
lecturers. Governor St. John, Clara Hoffman, John Sobieski, and Narcissa 
White. Sometimes these audiences were composed of from 2,000 to 
5,000 persons. 

As a result of her work, when the Legislature convened, there was a 
clear majority in both houses for submission. This was the beginning 
of "some grand fighting." It was put before the Legislature as forcibly 
as possible. Mrs. Cairns went to Jefl'erson City on opening da3% and 
put her amendment in as the first bill of the session. She was a tre- 
mendous worker, never tiring and always instigating enthusiasm in her 
helpers. Every morning after praj^ers the petitions were presented in 
both Senate and House from every county in the State. Gathering 
petitions in every county was ceaselessly carried on. If a member seemed 
to be wavering his friends at home were appealed to and they held 
great meetings, and the resolutions adopted were sent to him. From 
every city committees were sent to Jefferson City. The fight lasted five 
weeks. Every Friday night when school was over, Mrs. Cairns would go 



NOTABLE WOMEN OP ST. LOUIS 47 

to Jefferson City and gather around her the ministers, farmers, judges 
and lawyers, who were pledged to prohibition. She would hold caucuses 
with the eighty-two men who were standing by her so firmly. There 
would be a great meeting on Sunday, and on Sunday evening she would 
make addresses to the members of the Legislature, and always spoke to 
crowded houses. The position she took was a forcible and convincing 
one — that as 35,000 of Missouri's best citizens had publicly petitioned the 
Legislature to submit the question of prohibition to their decision that 
body should undoubtedly listen to them. When the final day came, the 
battle raged tempestuously and amendments, substitutes and resolutions 
were voted down. President Cairns told her men to say nothing and vote 
as they had been instructed. And when the last vote came there were 
eighty-two solid for submitting prohibition to the choice of the people. 
She had marshaled her forces to victory and had accomplished what 
never before or since has been done. The House of Representatives had 
been brought over to vote by an overwhelming majority for the amend- 
ment. But, alas! the Senate defeated the proposed amendment and 
prevented it from going before the people. 

Mrs. Cairns also held the position of organizer in the National W. C. 
T. U. for many years, and for two years was national superintendent of 
the department of capital and labor. One of her achievements was 
having a police matron appointed at the Four Courts in St. Louis. She 
urged this so successfully before the members of the board that she 
was sent to Chicago to see the success of a like appointment in that city. 
In order to make a good report, she had permission to stay in jail over 
night. On her return she made such a favorable impression that the 
W. C. T. U. were allowed to appoint a woman to this office. Mrs. 
Harris was selected because of her experience. 

Making thirty addresses in as many nights was Mrs. Cairns' achieve- 
ment in Texas, where she had been sent by the St. Louis Prohibition 
Club. Everywhere the audiences numbered into the thousands. When 
she reached Waco she was advised not to go on to San Antonio, as 
mob violence was used towards the speakers. They told her that the 
mob would cut off her hair, throw rotten eggs at her, and, perchance 
kill her. "Let them," said she. "My hair is long; I can spare some. 
I will wear a wash dress, and should they kill me we will win our 
amendment." In spite of her bravery, she was considerably frightened 
when the time came to appear before such a sullen gathering of people, 
but the feeling passed off and in a short time after relating something 
amusing, she had them in good humor. "This was one of my greatest 
triumphs," said Mrs. Cairns. The work was a labor of love — she never 
accepted one dollar in payment. 



48 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

In speaking of the scientific temperance law which her sister, Mrs. 
H. Worthington and she were successful in having passed, Mrs. Cairns saj's 
that law was not really worth anything, because it read "wherever a 
person desired to have his child taught the evil effects of alcohol on 
the system, only that one should be taught, and it must be done privately." 
In the meantime she had taken this up in her school and her teacher 
was a very capable woman. She made every experiment that proved 
that alcohol hurts the brain, and that it is not the harmless liquor it 
was claimed to be. All these experiments her girls knew how to make. 
Mrs. Cairns wanted this taught in all the schools, and with others went 
before the Board of Education and presented her proposition to them. 
There sat the members, smoking as hard as they could; they wanted 
to make the ladies run away if possible. Woman after woman went 
up and pleaded \\ith them to vote for this law. Mrs. Cairns decided on 
their next visit they would take a carriage and go to each one indi%idually 
at his place of business. They went around to these saloons and called 
the men out, and were taken to their parlors above the saloons, where 
their families lived and were told that the object of their visit was to 
have a law passed which would show the children in the schools the 
effect of alcohol on the system. This was done upstairs over their own 
saloons. Each and every one was invited out to the university and told 
he would be given a lesson that would demonstrate the real evil. And 
on a certain day six did go out. Many of the members of the W. C. T. U. 
also went. 

There was one among the School Board with a very red nose and as 
fat as a beer vat. He wore a dark purple woolen jacket, which showed 
off his rotundity to good advantage. When they saw him they thought 
"that is a saloonkeeper, sure," and another had a very red face, so they 
added, in their minds, "this is a drunkard and will vote against us; 
maybe he will not even listen." Still the students went through with 
their twenty-one experiments splendidly; when they had finished, up rose 
this man with the red face and said: "Now, I suppose you have been 
looking at me and you think I drink. But I do not. I like what you 
have done todaj' and I want it taught in the schools just as you have 
shown it to us here." That was Mike Foerstel. He was a great help 
and friend to the cause. Later he was City Treasurer of St. Louis. And 
it is a fact that these seven saloonkeepers on the Board of Education 
voted that the children of the public schools should be taught the physio- 
logical effects of alcohol on the system. And the bill was passed. 

Several years ago Mrs. Cairns learned that one hundred bankers 
were going up to Jefferson City from St. Louis, and fifty bankers from 
Kansas City, to prove that prohibition would utterly ruin St. Louis. Not 



XOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 49 

one minister, merchant, or lawyer, was going to plead for prohibition. 
So she took her proliibition map and went on the same train with 
the bankers, many of whom were her personal friends. They greeted 
her cordially and said thej^ were sorry she was going. When she reached 
Jefferson City the map was hung over the great fireplace in the Senate 
Chamber in the Capitol, where it was at once surrounded by an interested 
crowd. This map was made by the students of the university. The 
prohibition States were pure white; liquor license States were black; 
local option States were black and white, according to the counties that 
had no saloons. Some of these colors fell off in transit, but were pasted 
on again. 

When the committee met to hear the bankers, she begged to be heard 
in favor of the constitutional amendment, but was refused again and 
again. From three o'clock until six she heard the bankers groan out 
the same miserable storj' that prohibition would ruin St. Louis. That 
the brewers and distillers paid all the taxes and had over a hundred 
million invested in their business. She kept sending notes to the chair- 
man and to different persons to secure a hearing, and at six o'clock she 
was told that she might have ten minutes. 

She rose, sajang: "We have listened to those melancholy statements 
of ruin until we are like children who have told each other ghost stories 
until they were afraid to go to bed. I have here the sworn statement 
of the brewers themselves. Instead of one hundred millions they have 
verily seven and one-half millions invested — wliile the city of St. Louis 
has property, real and personal, amounting to about two billions. This 
is their sworn statement to the Assessor, published in the daily paper, a 
copy of which I hold in my hand. Does it not seem as if a city of two 
billions need not concern itself so outrageously over a little seven and a 
half millions, as has been stated all this afternoon? Fifty years ago all 
the ladies wore hoop skirts and there were one hundred factories engaged 
in making them in every land. Suddenly the ladies stopped wearing 
hoop skirts and the factories went out of business. Did their owners 
rush to the legislators and accuse the ladies of confiscating their property? 
No. They simply used those factories for other purposes. Such would 
be the case with the breweries. Thej' will engage in other kinds of 
business with all their accustomed energy. I do not think that one will 
sit down with his finger in his mouth to weep over the confiscation of 
liis property. They have always known that they are engaged in a 
business that the Supreme Court has in many decisions stated 'every 
State has police power either to regulate or prohibit.' " 

But the ten minutes was up and Mrs. Cairns sat down, having burst 
the bubble that 150 men had so laboriously blown. 



50 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. LODIS 

On March 19, 1908, the Alumnae Society of the Forest Park Uni- 
versity had given Mrs. Cairns a magnificent banquet at the Planters 
Hotel, on the occasion of her sixty-seventh birthday. It seemed as if 
her cup of happiness was full. Two days later the university caught 
fire and in two hours $25,000 worth of property was destroyed. School 
went on after a few days' vacation, and twentj'-five girls graduated in 
the class of 1908. 

The loss was $35,000 and $14,000 were covered by insurance. Esti- 
mates were made at once for rebuilding, and Mrs. Cairns took her army 
of servants and began clearing up the debris, wliich was over a foot deep 
all over the first floors. Through great holes in the ceilings of the 
different rooms one could look up into the sky. The following month 
was one of the rainiest St. Louis ever knew, and Mrs. Cairns was up 
every night at two o'clock, helping and directing her men to sweep out 
the floods of water that poured info the building. However, in a month 
from the day of the lire the architect had a roof again over their heads, 
and by the following September everything was in good order. 

In 1911 Mrs. Cairns was seventy years old, had taught school fifty 
years; then she celebrated her diamond jubilee. All of the old students 
were notified to return to the university for a "home-coming." There 
were about 500 present. The following year the twenty-fifth anniversary 
of Mr. E. Kroeger's connection with this institute, as the head of the 
musical department, was also celebrated. In 1912 the graduating class 
was the largest in the history of the university, numbering forty-four. 
The capacity of the school is for 150. 

Mrs. Cairns says: "I told you when I began teaching that I did not 
have any money or propcrtj', and now I will tell you why I know the 
Lord preserved this school for fifty-one years, and I hope will for many 
years more. It was because on the opening day I took my Bible out 
and read from it, and I prayed and asked God's blessing on the school, 
and from that day on the Bible has been read and studied every day." 

Mrs. Cairns has a large corps of teachers, housekeepers and many 
servants. She superintends this work herself. In fact, she knows every 
move that is made under her roof. When it comes to management, she 
is a "general" in every line. 

To see Mrs. Cairns sitting under the arch which surrounds the main 
entrance to her school with its colossal proportions, is a picture that will 
live a long time in the memory of her students and friends. She may 
well rest on the laurels of service and work well done for her God and 
her country. And that is what she appreciates and values most. 




GERHARD SISTERS PHOTO 



MRS CHARLES CUMMINGS COLLINS 



N T A B L E W M E N O F 8 T. L O U I S 51 



MRS. CHARLES CUMMINGS COLLINS 

CHARITY is a very usual line of endeavor for society women, but few 
women, anywhere, have made it quite as much of a science as has 
Mrs. Charles Cummings Collins. She became interested in the 
work about three years ago — in 1911 — and at once began energetically 
raising all the money necessary to erect and equip a Night and Day 
Camp for poor girls of this city who are threatened with tuberculosis. 
Since the opening of the camp she has been in active charge of it, and 
spends much of her time in the conduct of the business of that institution. 
This camp is located at 9500 South Broadway, in a large oak grove, 
overlooking the Mississippi River. It was opened March 19, 1913. The 
capacity is for twenty-eight girls. It is conducted as a preventorium 
against tuberculosis for self-sustaining girls and women. More than fifty 
girls, from department stores and factories, have been admitted. Over 
thirty have been discharged as practically cured. Dozens of women, 
ill, but compelled to earn a living, have here been able to receive the best 
medical and nursing care, and get the much needed proper nourishment 
and complete rest during their "off-duty hours." 

While the camp was primarily established for the prevention of the 
disease, it has accomplished more. With the restful surroundings and 
good influence the entire viewpoint toward life of the patient has fre- 
quently changed. Melancholy is lost, ambition is aroused, nerves are 
quieted, the spirit of unselfishness grows. It is the only one of its kind 
in the countrj', exclusively for women. The patients take absolute rest 
for three weeks, and then, if able to resume their work, return to the 
camp each night, until thoroughly rehabilitated. The treatment is abso- 
lutely free of any expense, except car fare to and from the camp. The 
groiMid was first broken for the building August 31, 1912. The first 
patient was admitted March 19, 1913. The total cost of construction was 
$6,231.80. The capacity only twenty-eight. The number of patients 
admitted to date fifty-two, and the number discharged thirty. The greatest 
gain in weight in the shortest time (three months), fourteen pounds. All 
expenses considered, the cost of each patient per month is $24.90, and per 
day, covering six meals, is 83 cents; cost for night patients is 55 cents. 
It cares for working girls who have contracted the disease in its incipent 
stages, and by giving them plenty of good, fresh air, and a healthy diet 
of eggs and milk, enables them to throw off the disease. To let people 
die from tuberculosis is a crime, when for a little money those who have 
developed the early stages can be entirely cured. While the movement 



52 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

for the Night and Day Camp was sponsored by the St. Louis Society for 
the Relief and Prevention of Tuberculosis, under the immediate direction 
of Mrs. Collins, yet the society has never been called upon for financial 
assistance or support. 

Mrs. Collins personally solicited numerous cash contributions, 
directed charity balls, and in conjunction with the "St. Louis Times" raised 
many hundreds of dollars in a dime-and-quarter campaign in the St. Louis 
wholesale, retail and business establishments. The proceeds from these 
and other sources went towards the construction of the camp, its equip- 
ment and maintenance. Miss Helen Gould also sent a very liberal dona- 
tion, which has been set aside as a nest-egg toward an endowment fund. 

The fact which made the camp a possibility was the gift of the land 
from the Laclede Gas Light Company. There are four acres of land 
with the house almost squarely in the middle. It is but a short distance 
from the Broadway car line, consisting of an administration building, built 
on a bungalow type, with two dormitories — one extending winglike 
from either side, and a kitchen in the rear. The dormitories are con- 
structed with a wooden base and screened walls. Along either side is a 
row of compartments, in each of which are two beds. The patients are 
sleeping in the open, but are under a comfortable shelter. The front 
lawn is used for the recreation grounds — it is strewn with steamer chairs, 
hammocks swinging from many trees, and a number of croquet sets — this 
being the least strenuous form of recreation for girls in their condition. 
There are also chicken yards, gardens, and dove cotes, for the girls to 
raise their own vegetables, poultry and squabs, all of which go to supply 
the camp's table. They have a piano, mandolins, graphophones, to 
amuse them. Most of the time the girls spend out in the open. 

The rising bell, at 7:30 a. m., with breakfast at 8:00, is the beginning 
of camp rules. After that is feeding the chickens, working in the gardens, 
but for the most part, resting and eating — six times a day do these girls 
eat. The food given them is of the most nourishing variety, in the way 
of soups, meats, poultry, milk and eggs; ice cream is one of the favorite 
desserts. Men are tabooed, not even a janitor is employed on the grounds. 
The patients are of all ages over fifteen. There are school teachers, news- 
paper writers, trained nurses, stenographers, factory workers and shop 
girls — more of the two latter occupations. As soon as the girls or women 
enter this home they are impressed with the fact that they are not hope- 
lessly ill, and with proper rest and diet may recover. The girl whose 
constitution is undermined with too much work must first build up her 
health in order to fight off the disease. Miss Rose Ryffle is an excellent 
nurse a graduate of the Baptist Sanitarium, and under her capable 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 53 

direction everything works very smoothly. Medical attention is furnished 
by Dr. Walter Fischel and his staff. 

In nearly every instance the girls who have left the camp as cured 
have returned to employments that bring them better wages than those 
they received when they were forced to drop their work and go to the 
camp for restoration. Some of the girls who go there are unable to 
relinquish their work, the money they receive in wages being required 
in home life. But even this does not prevent them from receiving the 
benefits of the camp. At the end of their day's work they come back 
to receive their supper, their lunch at nine, and their sleeping accom- 
modations, as well as breakfast. This costs the camp fifty-five cents. 
Briefly, it is possible for a rundown, susceptible or affected girl to continue 
her self-supporting employment and still receive care, attention and cure 
in the camp. This treatment is such that recently a girl gained eight 
pounds in a single week. In one instance, a girl badly in need of such 
care and who could not sacrifice her wages of four dollars a week, was 
taken in and her mother given the four dollars until she was again able 
to go out and take her position. Many cases like this are cared for. 

The pupils of Lenox Hall have raised enough money to purchase 
furniture for one room, and since have maintained two beds. They form- 
ally dedicated the room and a brass plate was put on the door. 

Mrs. Collins has done a great work in founding this camp, and she 
is justly gratified in knowing that she has perhaps laid the way for the 
healing and care of thousands of girls who will benefit by her movement. 
She is the daughter of Mr. H. Thomson. Her husband is an attorney, Mr. 
Charles Cummings Collins. Her children are Anne, July, Mary, Virginia 
and Elizabeth Cummings. Mrs. Collins is a good woman, very hand- 
some, and energetic, and is charitable to a fault. 



54 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MRS. MARY C. DILLON 

MRS. MARY C. DILLON, the author of "The Rose of Old St. 
Louis," and other books, was born in Carhsle, Pa. She is a grad- 
uate of the Mary Institute of that city. The Rev. Herman M. 
Johnson, her father, was the President of Dickinson College, and, while 
it was for young men only, she had the pri\'ilege of taking special courses 
there. She also had access to the library of the college, as well as to the 
private one of her father, and, being an omnivorous reader, spent the 
greater part of her time in them. Knowledge is only a matter of desire. 
Lucena E. (Clarke) Johnson was her mother. 

After the death of her father, Mary Johnson taught music at the Irving 
Institute of Mechanicsburg, Pa., for one year, and three years at Claverack 
College and Hudson River Institute. Later, coming to St. Louis, she 
married Mr. Patrick Dillon, of an Irish family formerly located in 
Canada. They were married only two years when Mr. DUlon died, leaving 
her with one Uttle daughter. Mrs. Dillon then taught Latin and Greek 
for five years in Hosmer Hall, with Miss Matthews as principal. Mrs. Dil- 
lon is an exceptional woman because she is a thinker, and has been able to 
concentrate her mind on her work, making it successful. 

During all tliis time she was laying the foundation of what she con- 
sidered necessary in writing historical novels; she felt that she could 
weave romances around some of the principal events in history, and make 
her books instructive as well as interesting. And this she has done 
skillfully. 

Her first book was "The Rose of Old St. Louis," published during 
the World's Fair in 1904. It was written very hurriedly — had been sug- 
gested by the preparations for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. It is 
a charming story and especially interesting to the many who know of the 
customs of the old French settlers. The historical information is accu- 
rate, and the customs, celebrations, etc., of the old aristocracy delineated 
with a pleasing and easy style. 

Mrs. Dillon's books have dealt with the people who have made their 
mark upon the times. History and romance are very closely related. 

"The Rose of Old St. Louis" — in order to get it published before the 
close of the fair — was going through the press while being written. Only 
nineteen chapters were finished when it was accepted and the publishers 
beoan to print it at once. The last two chapters were written, as Mrs. 
Dillon expresses it, "at white heat," and sent on to the publishers in lead 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. MARY C. DILLON 



X T A B L E WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 55 

pencil, without waiting to have them typewritten. The hook was out in 
six weeks from the time the pubhshers received the last installment, which 
proves the cleverness and facility of the writer. 

Forty or fifty thousand copies of "The Rose of Old St. Louis" in the 
cheaper edition and about the same number in the main edition, have been 
sold. 

Proving such a success, this book was followed by "In Old Bellaire." 
One is introduced to Old Bellaire in the earlj' '60s, wliich is a college and 
barracks town in Southern Pennsj'lvania. It is fairly overflowing with 
gallant youths and pretty maidens and is full of quaint and charming cus- 
toms and festivities. Few places can compare with Bellaire at that time. 
There are glimpses of Gen. Robert E. Lee in the book, ante helium as well 
as war glimpses. Gettysburg is touched, not detailed. 

Young people will enjoy the love story, but the older folks will 
remember the days which tried men's souls, and can not read without 
feeling for their pocket handkercliiefs to dry their eyes. She has told a 
tale of genuine aristocracy too sure of itself to be afraid of yielding to 
kindly impulses or to pause to consider whether it followed the pattern 
of any other or not. 

Mrs. Dillon presents no problems, gives no close analysis of character, 
bewilders her readers with no intricacies of plot, but presents a narrative 
that is clear and holds the attention of the reader by the skill in putting 
into her pages the very atmosphere of the life which her characters lead. 
The Century Company published this book. 

Then came "The Leader" (Doubleday-Page & Co.) The title cover 
bears the following, which, in part, explains the story: 

"The story of John Dalton, man of the people and a born leader, and 
of his memorable fight against political conditions, as well as against the 
social prejudices which separated him from the girl he loved." In her 
"foreword" the author states " 'The Leader' is fiction, pure and simple, 
and can not even claim to be a novel with a purpose." She further 
acknowledges having used incidents which, through the medium of the 
newspaper, are familiar to everyone; other than this its sole purpose is to 
unroll the story of two lives as pleasantly as may be, and as much for the 
gratification of the writer as for the edification of the reader. 

Surely the end justifies the means. In "The Leader" there is no strain- 
ing after literary effect, but there is some remarkably strong character 
delineation. It is believed that the original from wliich Mrs. Dillon has 
drawn the hero of this thoroughly American tale, is a man well known in 
American politics, and some of the scenes which she has portrayed have 



56 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

already become familiar to the public through the daily press. There is, 
of course, a point of departure from fact to fiction. 

Unlike so many of the latter-day writers, Mrs. Dillon did not seek her 
people among the new-rich, whose aim in life is some new sensation or 
excitement. Instead, we are introduced to well-bred folks with safe and 
sane outlooks. Politics, of course, comes into the book, but does not pre- 
dominate. The habits and hospitality of the Southerner are graphically 
described, making the book all the more fascinating. It is a delightful 
story to beguile the passing hour. 

Washington was the place chosen for this, Mrs. Dillon's fourth book — 
the time is the third decade of the last century, wliich provides scope for 
manj^ thrilling incidents and all the atmosphere of the alluring ante- 
bellum days. Of Kitty McCabe — the warm-hearted, willful, appeahng 
heroine, does this book tell. Of course Mrs. Dillon knows that one wiU 
recognize her at a glance as Peggy O'Neal in real life, who finally, becom- 
ing Mrs. Eaton, caused no little political and social excitement in the time 
of Jackson's presidency. Gen. Eaton figures very clear and lifelike in 
the story, as do Clay, Calhoun, Jackson and others. 

Mrs. Dillon says she has conscientiously swerved not a hair's breadth 
from the fact in writing of any incident that can be claimed as history, 
but confesses to have taken some liberties with the characters of these two, 
and with their intimate and personal experiences, to which history would 
lay no claim if it could, but which are the lawful domain of fiction. Her 
reproductions of the formal mannerisms of the time are clearly drawn. 
The romance is captivating; a woman in love is the most unreasonable of 
all created beings — except a man. 

Nature makes all lovers foolish — but nature alone knows best how to 
manage those things. Mrs. Dillon has used an liistorical basis for weaving 
her romances, and by this skill gives a solid body of fact, making them all 
the more interesting. She claims that disappointed hopes — when Jackson 
threw his influence to Van Buren's nomination — turned Calhoun's power- 
ful mind to secession as he was robbed of his chief ambition, and this was 
the sowing of the seeds of the great Civil War. 

The last book is "Miss Livingston's Companion," describing the cour- 
tesies and conditions of Manhattan in 1803-04. The book introduces us to 
a band of historical figures — Hamilton, Fulton, Gouverneur Morris, Aaron 
Burr and Fennimore Cooper. Mrs. Dillon has the marvelous faculty of 
fitting into her stories men of pronounced individuality and yet keeping 
them consistent to their noted traits of character. It is a continuance of 
"The Bose of Old St. Louis." Manhattan Island must have been in the 
early days of the last century a lovely region with a little town around the 



XOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 57 

battery and about Bowling Green, the grand estates of the wealthy above 
it, the wooded hills and great rivers skirting the island on the east and 
west. The fine estates of Hamilton and Burr and other great men she has 
described very beautifully, and has also given little pen pictures along the 
Hudson where the hero and heroine take us. The courtly life of the period 
when manners were polished, and the distinction of class even more 
marked and better grounded than today, she portrays graphically. This 
presents a picture of fashionable life as it was lived in New York then. 
She has not adhered altogether to dry historical facts in this book, but has 
modified them to suit her purpose of romance; however, these changes 
are not on important matters. 

Mrs. Dillon is at work on another book, but is doing so leisurely, and 
does not know just when it will be published. She finds pleasure in her 
wTiting — it opens up lines for reading and reference which prove of great 
value. For some sentences in some of her books she has looked through 
a dozen volumes, and again with little reference she would find much 
information. 

Mrs. Dillon has no regular method of writing. There is always some 
central idea about which she wishes to build a storj', and a setting that she 
has very vividly in her mind. With these two clearly formulated the story 
seems to gro\\' up around them without much effort. Most of her stories 
have, of course, demanded a large amount of reading to verify the histor- 
ical facts and sometimes considerable research to get the exact setting, but 
this she finds delightful pastime and says nothing can ever be quite 
as satisfactory as giving the rein to fancy in the writing itself. However 
modest the result, the act of creation is bound to be thrilling. 

Mrs. Mary C. Dillon was the eificient manager of the affairs of King- 
dom House for nine years. She was the first president of this noble enter- 
prise during its early struggling growth, and it was to her good judgment 
and energy that this work of spiritual and moral uplift has been such a 
splendid success. The office of chairman — and chairman for life — was 
created for her. She therefore remains as guide and counselor since her 
resignation of the presidenc}'. 

Mrs. Dillon is a highly cultured woman and has the graces and bearing 
of intellectual and refined association. She has traveled abroad many 
years, met many distinguished persons, been entertained extensivelj', and 
in consequence is delightfully entertaining and charming in her descrip- 
tions of her observations and experiences. 

Her features denote great strength of character and mentality; she is 
a tjTJe of gentlewomen — gracious in manner and dignified in appearance. 



58 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



DR. MARY DODDS 

DR. MARY DODDS was brought up on a farm in Scotland. Her 
father died in early Ufe, leaving her mother with six children. 
The Dodds' fai'm was in the borderland, near the Cheviot hills, in 
the County of Roxburgh. Marj' Dodds attended a normal school for women 
in a ^•illage two miles from their home in Yelholm. 

When eighteen years old she came to this country with a younger 
brother. Three brothers had preceded her, establisliing themselves in 
business in Ohio. The joungest brother, WUliam, whom she brought 
with her, remained in Xenia, Ohio, and is at present Mayor of that city. 
The oldest brother, Andrew, was the husband of Dr. Susanna Dodds, who 
was Susanna Way, born in Randolph County, Indiana, November 10, 1830, 
whose ancestors were Quakers on both sides. Her father was descended 
from Henry Way, the Puritan, who came to America in 1620. 

Because of the close association of Drs. Susanna and Mary Dodds in the 
profession in which both women had such steadj' and noteworthy success, 
in spite of the difficulties encountered in the beginning of their practice — 
much must be said of Dr. Susanna in connection with a sketch of "Dr. 
Mary." 

The people were not accustomed to "women doctors." Previous to 
their coming, there had been only two others established in this city — Dr. 
Grennan, and Dr. Lavelle, who is still living — one a homeopath and the 
other an allopath. 

Before she was eighteen years old Susanna Way taught school, follow- 
ing this profession at intervals for ten j'ears, part of which time she was 
attending college. Andrew Dodds w^as a vegetarian, also a hj-gienist and 
strenuously opposed the use of drugs for the treatment of disease. His 
wife soon came to believe as he did, and they both decided to take up 
the study of hygienic medication in the Hygeo-Therapeutic College of New 
York. Before this they had both been studying in Antioch College, Ohio, 
entering in the fall of 1858. She took the full course and graduated in 
1866. It was while attending this college they were married. 

During the Civil War Mr. Dodds was injured in such a manner that 
his wife knew his life would be short, and in order to prepare herself for 
such an emergency took up the study of medicine. They moved to St. 
Louis in 1868 and Mr. Dodds and his brother formed the firm of A. & G. 
Dodds Granite and Stone Companj*. 

After Mr. Dodds' death his wife conducted the business for two years 
until the affairs of the company were settled. Then she, with Dr. Mary 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



DR. MARY DODDS 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 59 

Dodds, who had also taken a course at the college in New York on the 
advice of Di-. Susanna, opened their sanitarium in 1878 at 2826 Washington 
avenue, known as Dodds' Hygiean Home. They did not do surgery except 
in minor cases. 

During the summer when business was dull. Dr. Mary would go to 
Chicago to attend clinics, because the advantages were greater there and 
a much more liberal view was taken of women following the profession of 
medicine. 

In their practice they used onh' hygienic or natural methods of treat- 
ment; diet, exercise, massage, electricity and hydrotherapy in all its man- 
ifold applications, and had phenomenal success in the curing of both acute 
and chronic patients. Except in cases for relieving pain, as in the last 
stages of cancer or other incurable diseases, no drugs were ever used. 
Though diseases of women and digestive disorders were their specialties, 
they treated all other diseases as well. They lived in the house they built 
at 2826 Washington avenue until 1900, when they erected the handsome 
structure at 4518 Washington boulevard. 

The last twenty j'ears of her life Dr. Susanna turned her attention 
entirely to writing. Her first work was "Health in the Household, or 
Hygienic Cookery;" the next, "Race Culture," which is a comprehensive 
and practical book for women. The manuscript of other books was left 
in form for publication. 

Dr. Dodds was very strenuous in her advocacy of the principles laid 
down by Drs. Trail, Graham and other pioneers in hydropathy and hygienic 
living. She wrote, "We need books, journals, papers, hygienic restau- 
rants — which are only recently being inspected in the proper manner by 
the public — and many other influences with which to spread these 
doctrines." 

In 1887 the friends of hygiene called a meeting in St. Louis to con- 
sider the founding of a hygiene college. The result of this was a certifi- 
cate of incorporation dated August 5, 1887, by the State of Missouri. The 
college was known as the St. Louis Hygienic College of Physicians and 
Surgeons, and Dr. Susanna Dodds was its dean. It graduated several 
classes and after a few years was discontinued for lack of funds, but the 
principles and methods taught there have become more popular with the 
people, and are being taken up more and more by the regular medical 
schools, and practiced by physicians. 

Dr. Susanna W. Dodds died at Long Beach, Cal., January 20, 1911. 
Dr. Mary Dodds, until 1912, kept up the sanitarium work right along, at 
the same time attending to a large office and outside practice. She has 
lived on the same simple diet which she served to her patients, believing 



60 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

that what would cure a sick person would keep a well one in good 
health. This she has verified by a phenomenal measure of good health 
all through many years of strenuous work. Attention to diet is, in her 
opinion and experience, the thing most necessary for the preservation of 
good health. Wrong eating and drinking prepares the soil for disease. 
The beginning of disease is nearly always in the stomach. A patient who 
has once suffered from a bad form of indigestion should always be careful, 
for nature always keeps an eye on the crack ready to. give one a jar. She 
contends that more fruit should be eaten and less meat. Too much 
variety at the same meal is bad; two or three kinds of food at one meal 
is enough. The game of improper living is not worth the candle, for it 
leads to suffering. Dr. Mary sold her sanitarium in 1912, and is now 
enjoying life in her quiet home, where she has an office and does a limited 
private practice. 

In recounting incidents of her early life Dr. Mary placidly smiles over 
the impressions she first gained when coming to America. It was in 
December she came with her youngest brother — the last of the family to 
leave the old homestead in the far-olf Cheviot hills of Scotland; and on 
arriving in New York she remembers vividly the desolate picture that was 
presented to her eyes. It was bitterly cold, with snow everywhere — the 
earth seemed covered with a mantle of dreariness. Coming from New 
York to Dayton, she saw nothing but snow and ice. She thought slie had 
never seen such shabby, miserable homes as the frame houses wliich were 
clustered around the different stations — wondering how the inmates could 
ever keep warm. In Scotland every home was built substantially of stone 
and brick, and had been homes for generations, having been built with 
such a purpose. But she soon became accustomed to that as well as other 
customs and conditions of a strange land. 

Dr. Mary is built straight and clean-cut. Just a little Scotch accent 
makes her voice seem all the more musical. While she is outspoken, 
there is a little twinkle in her eye which attracts one to the many pleas- 
antries and endearing mannerisms of her staunch character. 




ROSCH PHOTO 



MRS. A. I. EPSTEIN 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 61 



MRS. A. I. EPSTEIN 

MRS. A. I. EPSTEIN has demonstrated to the people of St. Louis and 
other cities her ability as a concert singer. She has a crystal 
clear soprano voice with a fullness of tone, richness of color, and 
emotional expression that invariably captures her audiences. Hers 
might be an international reputation did she not choose a domestic life in 
preference to an acceptance of the many flattering offers made by Eastern 
managers. The warmth and grace of her temperament, added to the skilled 
cultivation of her musicianship, place her in the foremost rank of singers. 

Since her appearance on the concert stage Mrs. Epstein has sung with 
the most prominent singing societies in this city and elsewhere, engage- 
ments taking her as far north as Winnipeg, Canada, and east as far as 
Pittsburg. With many of the societies she has been recalled to take part 
in oratorios. Her repertoire includes the soprano roles in Handel's 
"Hiawatha," Verdi's "Requiem," Liszt's "St. Elizabeth," Bruch's "Die 
Schone Helene," Schumann's "Paradise and the Peri," and many others. 
Added to a delightful personality, her finished art and charming stage 
presence have made her a favorite as well as a much admired artist. 

Mrs. Epstein has the linguistic ability to interpret her song in three 
languages. Incessant study, determination and ambition have placed her 
in the high position which she now occupies. 

There are few concert singers before the public today who can render 
such long and varied lists of song as Mrs. Epstein. From the point of 
view of vocalization alone her success is great, and as to interpretation her 
range of intelligence and feeling is inexhaustive. Mrs. Ej^stein has had 
very flattering offers froni Eastern concert leaders, but she realizes that 
she can not be the happy wife and mother that she is and lead a life such 
as would be required of a member of an opera troupe at the same time. 

Without any hesitation or regret she has refused offer after offer. 
Her work with the St. Louis Symphony Society has been a great triumph. 
For the first time in many years a singer from this city was chosen to 
appear as soloist at the regular concerts. 

During the World's Fair she was engaged by the Scranton Oratorio 
Society of Scranton, Pa., to sing the soprano role in Mendelsshon's Oratorio, 
"Elijah," at the concert given by them in Festival Hall in 1904. Mrs. 
Epstein was the only St. Louis singer engaged for the concerts given during 
the fair, most of them coming from Chicago and New York. 



62 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

The soprano role in "Elijah" was a difficult one, which she rendered 
amazingly well. 

She is the wife of A. 1. Epstein, of the Beethoven Conservatory, with 
whom as organist and choirmaster of St. John's Methodist Church and the 
Temple Shaare-Emeth, she has sung many years. 

Mr. Epstein, in addition to conservatory work, has directed these two 
church choirs for more than twenty years, both of which are known for 
their remarkable aggregation of good singers. 

Two of the representative musicians of St. Louis are Marcus L. and 
Abraham 1. Epstein, who have gained a national reputation as pla3^ers of 
duets on the piano. The Epsteins are an exceptionally talented family. 
Herman Epstein is equally distinguished as a pianist. They are all native 
Americans — born in Mobile, Ala. 

Mr. A. Epstein studied with Prevost and other masters, devoting him- 
self mainly to teaching piano, organ and composition lessons. He has 
often been heard in concerts to good advantage, and has written a con- 
certo for orchestra and piano, also composed considerable church music. 
By Mariana Brandt and other famous vocalists he has been pronounced 
one of the most skillful of accompanists. 

Many unique programmes have been rendered by Mrs. Epstein in 
connection with Mrs. C. B. Rohland's lecture recitals, and unquestionably 
some of the most difficult and interesting works of the old and modern 
composers have been presented bj' these two artists. Compositions by 
Sibelius, Strauss, De Bussey, Wolff, Tschaikowsky, Balakirew, Rubenstein, 
Borodine, Glinka, Bachmetieff, Mourssorgsky, Dargomysky, were pre- 
sented to the public, and beauties of these works brought out in masterly 
style. Mrs. Epstein was the first singer in America to give an entire 
recital of the works of Sibelius, the great Finnish composer. At present 
these two women are preparing a pretentious programme of modern 
Italian music which will be given in various cities during the season of 
1913-14. Mrs. Rohland is a recognized authority on musical data and has 
been closely identified with the development of music in this city. Her 
lectures are excellently prepared, instructive, and her sympathetic artistic 
accompaniments on the piano a great help to the singer. She is the direc- 
tor of the new Choral Society which has recently been organized in St. 
Louis for singers only, the object of the club being to do strictly choral 
work. Mrs. Rohland is a resident of Alton, 111., but makes weekly visits 
to St. Louis for the purpose of directing musical societies. The Alton 
public has had brought before them many of the leading orchestras, solo- 
ists and best musical talent of all countries through the influence of Mrs. 
Rohland. , 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 63 

Mrs. Epstein, who was Miss Sadie Kuttner, was born in Cincinnati. 
She came to St. Louis in 1900, at which time she entered the Beetlioven 
Conservatory, where she took a course of music under Mr. A. I. Epstein, 
who later became her husband. 

She early showed musical talent, taking up the study of the piano as a 
child. She was gifted by nature with a splendid voice, and can not remem- 
ber a time when she did not sing. Mr. and Mrs. Epstein have two little 
daughters, Marian and Janet, who are also talented in music. Mrs. Epstein 
has black hair and e3'es and a complexion of beautiful deep coloring. 
Her manner is placid and attractive, she is engaging in conversation, and 
altogether a very handsome woman, a domestic mother, an excellent wife, 
and a woman who has many friends and admirers in the musical world. 



64 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MISS LUCILLE ERSKINE 

LUCILLE ERSKINE, born in St. Louis in 1879, is a daughter of Mrs. 
I Marie Erskine-Robinson and the late Samuel Erskine, Esq., a law- 
yer of distinction, and famous as an orator. Mr. Erskine addressed 
large audiences at Cooper's Union, New York, on the Irish questions that 
are so near their happy solution. He was a son of Stuart Erskine, of Edin- 
burgh, attended Beloit College, Wisconsin, and taught English at night 
in the German Institute of St. Louis before studjing law, and later was 
called upon for the important work of revising its charter. He died at 
the early age of forty-two j^ears when Lucille was four j-ears old. Her 
education was undertaken wholly by her mother, herself a woman of 
pronounced intellectual tastes, who was especially careful to train her 
along literary lines. Miss Erskine graduated from Washington University 
in 1901, summa cum laude. Beginning to teach the following year at 
the Irving School, she was, after one year, appointed to the Central High 
School. In 1903 the summer was spent in New England, visiting the 
homes and places associated with Hawthorne, Emerson and Washington 
Irving. The summers of '04 and '05 were passed in the University of 
Chicago in post-graduate work in English. In 1907 she received a degree 
as Master of Arts from Washington University. Her thesis on Poe as a 
critic was afterwards published in the "St. Louis Mirror," and quoted in 
"Current Literature," New York, on the centenary of that poet. Miss 
Erskine travelled several successive summers in Europe doing foreign 
correspondence for St. Louis newspapers and the "New York World." One 
entire summer she lived in Dublin writing weekly letters on "The New 
Ireland." In 1909 her first story was published in the "St. Louis Mirror," 
and commented on by the "New York Dramatic Mirror;" they said it was 
a tale of surpassing art. The story was entitled the "Crystal." In 1911 
she gave up teaching, going to New York to do syndicate journalistic 
work for the Publishers' Press syndicate. This consisted mostly of inter- 
views with women in new lines of endeavor which were published simul- 
taneously in different papers throughout the country. She also contributed 
to the "New York World," "The Times," and the "Theatre Magazine," her 
sketches of some of the leading professional women being most unusual, 
because of their brilliant style of delineation. However, she preferred 
to give up this journalistic work when she realized that she could never 
make it a success commercially and devoted herself whollj' for six months 
to writing a novel. It is the Parnell theme developed imaginatively. The 
title of the book is "The Crossbreed; or. An Irish Storv." Miss Erskine 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS LUCILLE ERSKINE 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. l^OUIS 65 

returned to teaching in 1913, taking" the position of instructor of English 
literature in the Central High School. She liad previously taught at the 
McKinley for several years. She has not abandoned her literary work, 
being already occupied with another book which she expects to bring out 
this year. Miss Erskine lived in New York while writing "The Crossbreed," 
and says she had the loveliest time of her life; she lived only with the 
people in her book, and the world faded. Miss Erskine is very intense in 
her nature — there is in her a fine vein of cynicism mixed with tragic 
humor that is grim and keen. Her Irish, sensitive, romantic spirit, has 
been extensively developed by a thorough course in literature. She has a 
fine disregard for what is thought to be the thing worth while in the present 
day, and a valiant characteristic in that she admires truth and seeks for 
nothing but truth in everything with an uncompromising insight, and 
with a sharp pencil point lays bare the true impulses and workings of 
the human mind. Her book will show that she has unusual powers of 
character analysis and has no patience or sympathy with those who 
sham or shirk. This book is a big one because she has given her whole self 
to it — her romantic, poetic spirit, vast knowledge of literature, charm- 
ing and rare depictions of liuman nature in its simplest and highest forms. 
She has put a speech in the mouth of the leader of Parliament with the 
tact and finesse of a diplomat, j-et the appealing, lowly love-making of the 
poor Irishman, "Mike," she understands as well. The plot is laid in a 
typical city of the Middle West, carrying one across the sea to Ireland; she 
has taken the characters from life such as she sees and knows it best — 
from an unhackneyed point of view, refreshing and new; she keeps away 
from everything set and usual — originality with tragic force is her style; 
the plot is good; the intellectual development of the heroine, Cecelia, is 
unfolded with a strange, appealing power. As she says she felt when she 
wrote it — she just lived with the characters and forgot the world — just 
so one reads the book and at the close there is a strong feeling of regret 
mingled with admiration and indignation. Her writings show the ear- 
marks of genius; much may be expected of her in the future. 



66 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MISS MARY FISHER 

A LTHOUGH Miss Fisher protests that there is nothing in the story of 
/A her hfe that would particularly interest the public, as it is chiefly 
the story of her mental growth, we find that her life has been a par- 
ticularly active one in many directions. She has been teacher, traveler, 
writer, dramatic reader, lecturer, and has had the experience of a political 
campaign, in consequence of the nomination for Superintendent of Schools 
of Peoria County, Illinois. 

Out of tliis latter experience she saj's that she early learned the inval- 
uable lesson of the worthlessness of "they say," and that she resolved 
never afterwards to be disturbed or grieved by calumny or criticism, so 
long as she was conscientiously' doing her best. 

Her earliest writings were short stories and sketches for a literary 
paper of Peoria, but she discontinued this in a short time, feeling that a 
longer preparation was necessary for serious literary work, and that before 
doing anything more she ought to know what had already been written, 
that she might judge whether she herself had anything worth while to say. 
She read and studied incessantly, spai'ing no pains to acquaint herself with 
the trend of modern thought. She studied French and German, feeling 
that these two languages would give her access to scientific books which 
she could not get in English. She varied her experiences in teaching by 
changing her locality from time to time, and has taught in the high schools 
of Lewiston, 111.; Springfield, Mo.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Kansas City, Mo., 
and now in St. Louis. Twice she obtained a leave of absence, spending a 
year in Scotland and England, and a year in Italy, where the Italian 
language and literature were her chief subjects of study. 

Her summers are usually spent abroad or in some interesting part of 
America. She has traveled all over the British Isles and in France, Bel- 
gium, Holland, Germanj', Switzerland, Italy and Spain. She has passed a 
summer in New Brunswick and Novia Scotia, and another in the chief 
cities of Old Mexico, still another in Honolulu, and several of them on the 
Pacific Coast. It is to a summer in Quebec that we owe the setting of the 
first part of her recent novel, "Kirstie." 

This is one of the most interesting novels that has appeared for many 
years. The principal character is a woman of heroic type. The analysis 
reminds one forcibly of Jane Eyre. There is a delineation of passionate 
love directed and controlled by an unfaltering virtue. The situations are 
intensely dramatic. A continuous flow of reflections and comments of a 




AJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS MARY FISHER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 67 

pliilosopliic nature show the author's deep knowledge of humanity. The 
descriptions of the places where the scenes are laid are faithfully and 
beautifully portrayed — poetically, too, showing the capacity of a true 
artist. This book is of the highest moral tone. 

In 1896 Miss Fisher was attracted by the suggestive character of Max 
Nordau's Entartung, which had just appeared, and made a translation of it 
that was accepted by a prominent New York house on condition that Max 
Nordau's consent could be obtained. Miss Fisher wrote to Max Nordau, 
who replied that he had just disposed of the right of translation to a London 
firm. The immense success of the book, which appeared simultaneously 
in every modern European tongue, confirmed Miss Fisher's belief that how- 
ever extravagant the book might be in some of its assertions, it had its 
message for a generation that was mistaking ijathology for literature. 
She says that the book made her feel that health — not disease, and moral- 
ity — not debauchery, make the surest soil for sound literary productions. 

About tliis time the "Valiant Woman" to whose memory Miss Fisher's 
latest book is a loving tribute, engaged her in a correspondence on English 
literature with a young girl of Santa Fe, N. M. Miss Fisher's letters were 
read there to a woman's club, and learning of the favor they had received 
she was led to submit them to a publisher as an aid to the young in answer- 
ing that familiar question, "What shall I read?" They were published 
by S. C. Griggs & Co., Chicago, III., whose successors, Scott, Foresman 
& Co., still continue to publish thein under the title of "Twenty-five 
Letters on English Authors." They are written in an easy, flowing style, 
and abound in literary anecdotes and personal glimpses of the great men 
and women whose works are the treasures of the English tongue. This 
book was followed by "A General Survey of American Literature," pub- 
lished by A. C. McCIurg & Co., Chicago. 

After the publication of these two books Miss Fisher went to Boston 
to avail herself of the advantages of the public library there. She wished 
to study the literary criticism of France. For Saint Beuve she had a 
profound admiration, and soon discovered that he was but the bright 
particular star of a whole constellation of brilliant critics. Finding that 
the names of these critics were almost, if not wholly, unknown to English 
readers, she wished to share her enthusiasm with the public, and wrote 
"A Group of French Critics," in which she gave a brief biographical sketch 
of Edmond Scherer, Ernest Bersot, Saint-Marc Girardin, Ximenes Doudan 
and Gustave Planche. In addition to the biography, she translated speci- 
mens of the pungent criticism of these clever thinkers, hoping that the 
sanity of their views might create a public demand for them in America. 
The book attracted some good notices from the best reviewers, but the 



68 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

general public was, and is, extremely indifferent to literary criticism, 
and the book is now out of print, the plates having been recently destroyed. 

Then Miss Fisher tried her hand at fiction. While in Glasgow, 
Scotland, she had seen a good deal of the social work among the poor, 
known as "slumming," and was not wholly converted to many of its 
methods. She thought that the interest in the poor was rather a fad 
among the idle rich than the result of the promptings of sincere sympathy, 
and that it is not given to everj^one to act as an inspiration and a guide 
to them. This is the theme of "Gertrude Dorrance," published by A. C. 
McClurg & Co. The book was never very widely read, and Miss Fisher 
ceased to write for a while, plunging more deeply into her books and 
study, reading in six languages the best that has been thought and said 
in them, sloughing old opinions and growing into new ones, and then 
the wish to say something awoke in her again and the result was "The 
Journal of a Recluse," published anonymously by Crowell & Co., New 
York. From the force of its style and directness of expression, as well 
as maturity of thought, the authorship was ascribed to different persons 
of literary fame, but no one thought the author was a woman. The 
secret was kept for about tliree years, when her incognito was discovered 
by some of her friends. 

The book, which claims to be a translation from the French, was 
really written at first entirely in French. Miss Fisher explains that fact 
by saying that it was written in hours after school work was over, and 
that her sensitiveness to any defect in the construction of her own language 
sometimes impeded the flow of her own thought, but that in a foreign 
tongue she felt no such restraint, and wrote more freely, caring not at 
all in what way she expressed herself. She could furnish the expression 
when she made the translation. It is possible that this accounts for 
the remarkable clearness and rhythm of her prose. Her books, as an 
acute critic says, have an individual distinction and charm of expression 
wliich appeals to people who have a keen hterary instinct. The "Journal 
of a Recluse" was a success in the best sense of the word; that is, it 
found that audience whose approval means substantial merit in the work. 
It was followed in last October by another novel, "Kirstie," and by "A 
Valiant Woman — A Contribution to the Educational Problem," of which 
Superintendent Greenwood, of Kansas City, wrote to the publisher, in 
a desire to know the name of the author: "It is one of the best and 
most sensible books on education that has come from the press of this 
country in many years. The author knows real education from the 
spurious article, and he puts his fingers on the weak spots, and he has 
the courage of his convictions in the expression of his opinion. In these 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 69 

daj's of soft pedagogy and sugary teaching, it is, indeed, refreshing to 
read an author who has a great message and knows how to deliver it 
to fair-minded people." 

The author has probably more messages to deliver to us in the 
future, and perhaps it is not an exaggeration to say that few women 
since George Eliot have been better equipped in general learning for the 
delivery of a message than Mary Fisher. 

Of Scotch and English parentage, born on the prairies of Illinois, 
about 130 miles south of Chicago, beginning her education in a village 
school in wliich she was teaching at sixteen, self-educated, later through 
wide reading and travel, learning her French, German, Spanish and 
Italian in the countries in which they are the native tongues, and now 
a teacher of modern languages in the McKinley High School of this city, 
so runs the biography of Mary Fisher. 

Frank and natural in manner, showing evidence of a wide intellec- 
tual curiosity and a vivid sympathy with human nature, it is not difficult 
to engage Miss Fisher in conversation, which reveals her trend of 
thinking on the chief problems of modern life. Perhaps a quiet im- 
perturbable common sense, better than anything else, will describe her 
attitude to things in general. She does not believe in panaceas nor in 
violent remedies; is inclined to think that true human progress is indefi- 
nitely slow, subject to intermissions and relapses; that humanity gropes 
its way instinctively towards the right rather than leaps into it by sudden 
jumps or by legislative enactments. 

Mary Fisher is a little below the average height. Her eyes are gray 
and they are penetrating and sympathetic, keen and kind, and her brown 
hair is well sprinkled with gray. In manner, she is frank and unaffected, 
ready to talk with anyone on any subject, and always more willing to 
be interested in what interests someone else than to intrude her own 
thoughts and tastes upon another. 

She is a rare, fine woman — studious, thoughtful always — with an 
irresistible charm over those with whom she comes in contact. She 
knows the world and the people in it for what it is worth; her travels — 
with her wonderful capacity of observation — enable her to gather informa- 
tion from this experience and that, lop off absurdities, strengthen here 
and bolster there, until in her mind there have grown up ideals which 
she materializes in her writings. 

Miss Fisher is a woman of genius. 



70 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MISS AMELIA C. FRUCHTE 

AMONG the notable women in educational, social and economic circles 
J\ of St. Louis is Miss Amelia C. Fruchte. She is a product of the 
public schools, and a graduate of the St. Louis Normal School, at 
the time when Dr. William T. Harris was a leading light in the educational 
work of St. Louis, and Anna C. Brackett — one of the most remarkable 
educators known among women — was principal of the school. Amelia 
C. Fruchte and Harriet Hosmer were the first two women admitted to 
the St. Louis Medical College, under the influence of Dr. John T. Hodgen, 
who at the time was president of the American Association of Physicians. 
Both were allowed to attend lectures and to take part in "Quiz" clubs, 
though neither was granted a diploma, because the school did not then, 
and does not even now, graduate women. 

Miss Fruchte was also, through many summers, a regular attendant 
at the Concord School of Philosophy, that institution planned by the 
fertile brain of the renowned A. Bronson Alcott. There she acquired 
much of her present taste for philosopMc, sociological and literary studies, 
especially in the interpretation of masterpieces. 

Miss Fruchte has done extension work at Wasliington University, 
University of Chicago, Columbia University of New York, and summer 
work at Sorbonne (Paris). 

When she was a mere girl she received several prizes: One was a 
gold dollar for reciting almost verbatim the book, "The Gospel of St. 
John," and a second gold dollar for reciting in the same manner the 
Constitution of the United States. Then the third was a prize in domestic 
science for knitting a pair of silk stockings for her father. 

So early in life the thought that she sUll claims of combining culture 
work with domestic uUlity was fertile in her mind. The study that has 
always been most interesting to her has been institutional sociology, and 
probably no woman has considered more faithfully or penetrated more 
deeply into the fundamental principles of our American institutions, and 
today she believes that the making of institutions is man's greatest 
vocation. 

Miss Fruchte has, from her youth, been an advocate of the equality 
of the sexes. For years she has been an ardent spokesman of equal 
suffrage for women, and of equal opportunities in economic conditions, 
claiming forcibly that it is not simply woman's privilege to vote and to 
contribute in some way to her self-support, but it is a duty from wliich 
she ought not to recoil. 




KAJIWAR* PHOTO 



MISS AMELIA C. FRUCHTE 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L0VI8 71 

Professionally, Miss Fruchte is a teacher, having begun her career as 
such when she was scarcelj' sixteen. Beginning in a small country school, 
she has taught in everj' grade of the St. Louis public schools from the 
primary through the high and teachers' college. She has been a teacher of 
pedagogy, psychology, mathematics, science, literature and history of art. 

At present she is connected with the Central High School — a school 
that has been in existence tifty-six years, and is regarded as the mother 
school of all progressive high-school work, not only of St. Louis but of 
the Mississippi Valley. Miss Fruchte's work, at present, is the interpreta- 
tion of literary masterpieces, especially of Shakespeare and Homer. 

This talented woman is especially gifted in organizing, and as a 
result of her long study with that genius. Dr. Denton J. Snider, who has 
written so prolifically on American institutions, she was one of the 
originators of the Contemporary and the Wednesday Clubs of this city. 
Then she was the only woman president of the Society of Pedagogy — an 
organization now in its fortieth year, and looked upon as one of the 
greatest pedagogic organizations among teachers — either in this country 
or in Europe. 

The first president of the St. Louis Teachers' Fellowship was Miss 
Fruchte. This is an organization that is essentially philanthropic in its 
aim, hoping at some day to have a sufficient fund of its own to build 
a home as well as a hospital for aged teachers. 

Miss Fruchte is a life member of the Missouri State Teachers' Asso- 
ciation, where she has spoken frequently. She is looked upon as a very 
ready impromptu speaker and has been called upon to address most 
every organization where women were at all likelj' to appear in public. 

She is a member of the National Educational Association, and in the 
meeting of July, 1912, was elected vice-president, the honor being the 
highest conferred upon any Missouri woman by that association. 

In August, 1913, Miss Fruchte was appointed, by the Mayor of St. 
Louis, as a delegate to represent the city in the Fourth International 
Congress of Hygiene, which met at Buffalo, N. Y. 

It is interesting to know of the founding of the Contemporary Club, 
which grew out of the old Unitarian Club. The latter started out with the 
thought that it should be composed entirely of a male membersliip, and a 
limited number at that. Soon, however, the need of woman's assistance 
was felt, and some Unitarian women, also one Catholic, were admitted, and 
a little later Miss Fruchte, who is a Baptist, was taken in — so that in that 
sense she was really one of the disorganizers and one of the organizers 
of the Contemporary Club that was to move on a more cosmopolitan 



72 ROTABLE wo MEl^^ OF ST. LOVIS 

plane. This name was chosen because its purpose on the literarj- side is 
to have addresses from men and women on any subject that is uppermost 
and vital in the interest of the public at anj' given time. It is also a social 
club that precedes the debate, whatever it may be, with a dinner. 

As to the founding" of the Wednesday Club, Miss Fruchte took no 
small part. Mrs. E. C. Sterling, Miss Gertrude Garrigues and Miss Amelia 
C. Fruchte were the first tliree women who met to take steps looking 
toward a literary club broad enough in its scope to serve as a center of 
thought for women and to promote their practical interests. Later twenty 
or more women met and drafted a preliminary constitution and con- 
sidered a name for the club. Miss Fruchte was the first to make a sug- 
gestion — her idea was to call it the Sterling Club, but it was decided to 
give it a name that would be wholly impersonal, and the name "Wednes- 
day" was selected. Miss Fruchte's mind is well balanced, and she is 
logical and just. She wants everything that will work to the good of 
womankind. Her plans are broad and comprehensive. She is a deliber- 
ately progressive woman. Nothing flurries Miss Fruchte — she holds her 
own at all times. She loves a good argument — especially with a man, 
because she has the weapons to make a good fight — her command of 
language being exceptional. 

Miss Fruchte has a massive head, crowned with snow-white rippling 
hair, sparkling black eyes, and an expressive countenance. 

Miss Fruchte is a member of the Equal Suffrage Association of 
Missouri, and has been an ardent worker for that cause for many decades. 

She has spoken in the schools to groups of 1,400 pupils; before the 
Society of Pedagogy to audiences of 2,000. She was chosen to respond 
to the address of welcome given to the State Teachers' Association by 
the Governor of Missouri at that time. She has frequently "sparkled" 
at banquets, and has given many addresses before all varieties of women's 
clubs. 

The Society of Pedagogy was organized forty years ago in the private 
home of Francis E. Cook. At first it was desired that the club should 
be small, exceeding, perhaps, not more than a dozen of the leading 
educators among the men. Later, women were invited for musical 
numbers on the Saturday programmes. Later stUl, women were elected 
to the various offices, secretary, treasurer, vice-president, etc. Miss 
Fruchte held all of these offices in succession and then, through one of 
the liveliest campaigns ever known in the history of the society, at an 
annual meeting, when 1,200 teachers were present in tlie auditorium of 
the Central High School, was nominated and elected president. Dr. F. 
Louis Soldan, the then superintendent of schools, and Ben Blewitt, the 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 73 

present superintendent, were in accord in declaring that her work was 
successful beyond criticism. 

Miss Fruche has been a member for years of tlie Teachers' Annuity 
Association, and in connection with it has done some of her finest speaking 
and organization. She has been before the Missouri Legislature, as an 
advocate of the pension system for teachers, both that the schools inay 
be protected from service that has been weakened by age, and the teachers 
maj' be fairly rewarded in their infirm years for service that is at all 
times underpaid and nerve-racking in the highest degree. 

One of the most delightful experiences in Miss Fruchte's early teach- 
ing career was when she was invited by Dr. William T. Harris to visit in 
Concord, Mass., and to become a student in the Concord School of Philos- 
ophj% under the great leader in transcendentalism. This invitation Miss 
Fruchte gladlj' accepted. 

The morning after arriving, Miss Fruchte had dressed, as was her cus- 
tom, in a dark blue gown with touches of vivid red bows. Presently she saw 
A. Bronson Alcott coming down the road, swinging in his hand a basket 
of ripe red apples. He spied her on the piazza, and without waiting to 
be admitted through the front door, came at once to her and took a 
proffered chair, offering the apples as a morning greeting. Then he 
looked up and said, with a twinkling eye: "Ah, I thought that red would 
be gone this morning; you wore it yesterday." Miss Fruchte caught her 
breath and asked for an explanation — he was her senior by several decades. 
"Don't you know, my child, that no civilized girl ought to wear red? It 
is a barbarian color and antagonistic to highest spirituality." She says 
she began to reflect, but confesses that it took her many years to part 
with some of the shades of hopeful red. The magic experience of the 
conversation about the stories of Homer that followed the remainder of 
that morning, was repeated in some form or another almost dailj^ during 
that most fruitful summer. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, no longer in his prime, was still able to be 
charmingly helpful, and the picture of him as he sat on the platform in 
the chapel — as it was called — while his beloved daughter. Miss Ellen 
Emerson, sat beside him, to supply the word that incipent aphasia was 
causing him to recognize in form but not in sound, is one somewhat 
painful, though sacred, to her memory. 

Another delightful remembrance was his beautifully modulated ac- 
cents when he addressed Mrs. Emerson. He always called her "queen," 
and treated, and inclined others to treat her, as though she were a queen 
in his own household or in any other circle. 



74 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

Many were the delightful teas at the home of the Emersons, Judge 
Hoar's family, the Harris', the Sanborns and the Ripleys, in the evenings 
following mornings spent in philosopliic investigation and debate. Some 
of these given at the Old Orchard House, the Wayside Inn, and the Old 
Manse, were events of literary importance. All, of course, made most 
attractive through the beautiful simplicity of cultured New England. 

Mr. Alcott, after the realization of his life dream in the Concord 
School of Philosophj', found great delight in admiring and leading others 
to admire his gifted daughter, Miss Louisa Alcott. The latter in turn, 
although she did not seem fully to sympathize with her father's philosophy, 
did adore him and was never happier than when she was promoting 
measures that would advance and secure his permanent comfort. 

While Mr. Alcott was ecstatic in the revelations of philosophic theories 
at the Concord school, Louisa Alcott was frequently down at beautiful 
Waldon Pond, near the Thoreau Cairn, chaperoning Boston boys and 
girls who were brought down from the poorer districts for a bath, a 
dinner and an outing. She returned at the end of the day so happy over 
her practical philosophy that weariness seemed no part of her nature. 

Even though Miss Alcott lacked the far-away dreanij' vision into 
eternal verities, so characteristic of the personal appearance of her vener- 
able father, yet, on the other hand, the glow of human sympathy and 
willingness to reach down to the humblest and lowliest with a helping 
hand were her markedly inviting characteristics. 

Among the other interesting characters were Miss Julia Ward Howe, 
who, surrounded by all the culture and wealth that the New and the Old 
World could provide, was, herself, a thoroughly democratic woman. 

After the Concord School of Philosophy closed, at the end of ten 
years, according to its original plan, some of the people whose souls had 
been welded together through a common interest, went with that inimit- 
able Scotch scholar and leader, Thomas Davidson, to Glen More, the 
beautiful 300-acre tract of ground in the heart of the Adirondacks, just 
midway between Lake Placid and West Port. There such spirits as 
John Dewey, Royce of Harvard, Bakewell of Yale — who afterwards became 
Mr. Davidson's heir and successor. Miss Kent of New York, and Miss 
Grace Gilfillan of St. Louis, continued another decade of educational and 
philosophic research, with delights numerous and profitable. This dream 
of fellowship found its blight in 1902 with the sudden death of the verj' 
capable leader, Mr. Da\'idson. 

Miss Fruchte's tastes run, especially in recreation, along the lines 
suggested through the summers spent at Concord and in the Adirondack 
home that she so much admired. She could rarely be induced to be 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 75 

absent at anj' time from these ideal commonwealths, if such they may 
be called, except when she found it necessary to have a little observation 
of the Old World, which she gained through five summer journeys. 

While in Europe she visited particularly the haunts and homes of 
literary people. She, herself, is of German ancestry on the paternal side, 
and her first visit was to Frankfurt, Germany, where she went as a guest 
with Mr. and Mrs. Louis Soldan, and where the three were present at the 
opening of the Goethe Theater, when the second part of Faust was pre- 
sented for the first time. This event was interesting since they had been 
members of the Faust Culture Club, one of the forms of study so common 
and productive in St. Louis when Mrs. John W. Noble and Mrs. Rufus 
Lackland used to throw open their beautiful homes to such leaders as 
Dr. William T. Harris, Dr. Denton J. Snider, Dr. Louis Soldan, Conde 
Fallen, Thomas Davidson, and many other gifted men and women. 

In her fourth visit she spent the summer at the Paris Exposition, part 
of the time as a guest of Dr. William T. Harris, the then great commis- 
sioner, who did more than any other one educator to formulate the 
American system of schools, and present it in attractive and convincing 
form to the European public. 

Born on the Grant farm, near St. Louis, Miss Fruchte is, by nature 
and culture, most cosmopolitan in her ideas. She has always been 
extremely proud of her birthright as a Missourian. The best that she can 
command is at the service of her native State whenever it is desired. 

During the summer of 1912 she took an active part in the support 
of the Progressive party, and spoke from the platform in St. Louis, with 
its leader — Theodore Roosevelt. 

At present she is actively engaged in propelling the interests of the 
St. Louis Pageant and Masque, that is to be given on Art Hill in Forest 
Park, in April, 1914. 



76 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MRS. EDMUND A. GARRETT 

CLARE PFEIFER GARRETT, wife of Edmund A. Garrett, is a sculptor 
of considerable interest to the artistic public of this city. It was 
here that she commenced her study; it was from here that she 
went to Paris and New York, and it is here, to her native city, she returns, 
bringing an art enriched by the experiences of delightful years in these 
cities. 

In St. Louis three of Mrs. Garrett's large pieces may be seen at the 
Mary Institute, the Eugene Field and McKinley High Schools. A fourth, 
posed by a St. Louis girl, now employed in a downtown otfice, stands at 
the entrance of Kingsbury Place. A number of smaller pieces are in 
many of St. Louis' finest homes. She has been splendidly remunerated, 
busts bringing her $1,000, and other pieces in proportion. Her work 
was exhibited in the Salon, Champs Elysees, Paris, 1903-'04-'05, the 
three years she resided abroad. "Les Crysalides" was exliibited in 
the Royal Academy, London, 1904. The beautiful nude of adolescent 
womanhood was accorded the honor of a well-lighted, conspicuous loca- 
tion. Much praise was given her for the merit of this piece. 

In that same year she was awarded a bronze medal by the Louisiana 
Purchase Exposition, held in St. Louis in 1904, for "Echo," a bronze in 
the nude. In 1906 her "Boy Teasing Turtle" was acquired by the Metro- 
politan Museum of Fine Arts, New York. It was purchased by Sir Purdon 
Clarke, the director of the museum, from the Gorham Company, Fifth 
Avenue, New York, through whom Mrs. Garrett has sold her smaller 
pieces exclusively. 

A portrait in low-relief (bas-relief) of her husband was exhibited by 
the National Sculpture Society, New York, a year later, and by it awarded 
honorable mention. Mrs. Garrett prizes this portrait of her husband very 
much. Until her return from the East to St. Louis she was a regular 
exhibitor at the National Academy, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of 
Fine Arts. 

Studying at the St. Louis School of Arts from 1893 to 1897, she won 
scholarships, and in 1897 its prize medal. From that time until 1902 she 
maintained her own studio in this city, where she became busy with her 
first commissions, and a number of large pieces, among them the already 
referred- to bust of President McKinley, in the McKinley High School, a 
fifty-foot frieze of cliildren in the Eugene Field School, and a memorial 
bas-relief at the Mary Institute. 

In 1902 Mrs. Garrett was able to realize the cherished ambition of 
every aspiring artist, to study in Paris, where she entered L'Ecole des 




STRAUSS PHOTO 



MRS. EDMUND A. GARRETT 



N O T A B L E W M E N O F S T. L U I S 77 



Beaux Arts, under Marquette. This is the great French school, and is 
tiie greatest of art and architecture in the world. Afterwards she left 
there for more advanced work, the study of her own models in her own 
studio. Emile Bourdelle, the French sculptor, renowned for great subtlety 
in his work, she chose as her critic. For the first year he came weekly, 
afterwards only as Mrs. Garrett sent for him. For each criticism his fee 
was 50 francs ($10), from which we learn that not only is art long and 
life short, but that it is expensive, too. 

Mr. Garrett has a splendid collection of platinum-print photographs 
of his wife's many pieces of work, pieces that are now sold and scattered 
from New York to California. Among them, not already mentioned, is 
one which carries a strong appeal, "Budding Womanhood," owned by 
David Belasco; a medallion portrait relief of Mrs. Hudson E. Bridge, and 
a life-size group of a French lady with her young daughter. 

Another is "The Peasant Boy," which she sold to Gorham & Co., 
silversmiths. "The Boy Piper" and "Sleep" are figures in the Strauss 
photograph gallery in this city. A model for a clock, which attracted 
much attention, was made for Mrs. James Blair. 

But to return to Mrs. Garrett's student days in St. Louis. It was at 
the age of eighteen that she first attended the classes at the art school in 
the old museum on Locust Street, where Robert P. Bringhurst was her 
first and the most efficient and painstaking instructor she ever had. Mrs. 
Garrett relates that she did nothing serious for the first year; she played 
and wasted her time hterally, and it was not until the closing week of the 
term that she thought of her work other than as a diversion and a lark. 
Her lack of concentration annoyed Mr. Bringhurst and be became dis- 
couraged with her. 

"You had better give it up. You have no ability," he told her. 

"I have abilitj%" she cried. 

"I will do this thing," pointing to a difficult model, "and I will 
finish it, too." 

This thoroughly aroused her slumbering energy and ambition. Her 
interest in her work became absorbing and she won scholarships as well 
as their first medal. 

For two years after finishing the course she lived an altogether social 
life, but tiring of it, finally fell back on her art, which occupied time that 
had come to lag heavdly, and gave her an opportunity to express the 
latent talent she had allowed to lie dormant. The development of her 
art and the acquirement of an aim in life date from this period. 

Her first studio was in the Y. M. C. A. Building — for one year. And 
the first commission was from Mr. Ittner, the architect, for the frieze in 
the Eugene Field kindergarten. 



78 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

She acted as assistant to Mr. Bringhurst for several years, while 
studying in the art school, and spent some time in Omaha, assisting him 
in work on the pediment of the Art Building, under construction for 
the Fair. 

This included decorating cornices. Often she would work on scaffold- 
ing twelve feet high. Here an interesting incident took place. Mrs. Garrett 
prefers modeling children wherever the opportunity presents itself, and 
made a number of very good nudes of little cherubs which were put on 
the cornices. One night, soon after, the Salvation Army women chopped 
them down with axes. They were heavily fined and obliged to pay for 
them. Their artistic point of view evidently did not coincide with that of 
the artist. This brought a great deal of notoriety at the time to both Mr. 
Bringhurst and his assistant. 

Mrs. Garrett was born in Pittsburg, Pa. Her father was Carl Pfeifer, 
a prominent engineer, who took an important part in the erection of the 
Eads Bridge. When she was but ten years old he died at the age of forty. 
Both her parents were German born, and came from Germany as children, 
the mother, Marie Rotteck, in 1848, and the father several years later. 
Her mother still lives, making her home in Ferguson. Her brother, H. 
J. Pfeifer, who has followed in his father's footsteps, is the engineer, 
maintainance of way, of the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. 

Miss Pfeifer attended the public schools of St. Louis, and later was a 
pupil of Sacred Heart Convent. In 1906, while in London, she married 
Mr. Edmund Garrett, an artist and inventor. They have two little sons, 
Carl and Julian, who make excellent models for their mother. 

"What is the happiness of modeling and creating a clay image to that 
greater happiness of a mother in her children? Two boys — more per- 
fect than I can model," she exclaims. These two little fellows — one four 
and one seven — are growing fast, and as they become less helpless she 
finds them less dependent on her. It will not be long before the devoted 
mother will again have the opportunity to return to her chosen field, and 
work anew from a rich and full experience. 

Mrs. Garrett is a delightful associate. She is frank and natural in 
manner and well poised. It is hoped that people in St. Louis will wake 
up to the fact that we have in our midst artists and sculptors, and other 
talented men and women, who are ready and willing to do much to 
improve the artistic standard of this city, to give of themselves to create 
the proper demand for what they can offer, and thereby beautify, orna- 
ment, enrich public and private homes and institutions, parks and street 
corners, and make these objects of art familiar to every child who plays 
in its vicinity, and establish environments that will unconsciously develop 
the inhabitants of a city towards a more ideal and cultured hfe. 




GERHARD SISTERS PHOTO 



GERHARD SISTERS 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 79 



GERHARD SISTERS 

THE Gerhard Sisters were the first women photographers to establish 
a studio in St. Louis. Beginning as little girls, in the employ of 
F. W. Guerin, a famous early-day photographer, they worked with 
him for ten years, mastering every detail of the photographic business, 
and when Mr. Guerin retired, moving to California, succeeded him, taking 
over his interests and developing new and original ideas and methods 
which, as they have applied to portrait photography, give a value and 
beauty of execution equal to painted portraits. 

The ten years in which they have maintained a studio have been 
progressively successful, and they now have the satisfaction of seeing 
their introduction of more artistic effects appreciated, and their ambitions 
realized by giving to their work a recognized value wherever exhibited. 
They have a branch studio in North St. Louis, but their main studio on 
Olive Street, near Grand Avenue, was built under their supervision, and 
in accordance with the purposes they had in view. There are seven or 
eight rooms, and the first thing noticeable is the absence of photographic 
properties; the rooms have very large, many-paned windows, broad 
window seats, fireplaces, cozy corners, etc. They are decorated in soft, 
warm tones that make the whole atmosphere inviting and restful. 

The conventional light, at an angle of forty-five degrees, as taught 
by photographers, is ignored, and only the natural light of everj'day life 
enters into their compositions. 

In such an atmosphere the sitter unconsciously relaxes and loses the 
sense of posing which is associated with having one's "picture taken." 
This is the condition Misses Gerhard consider essential for the production 
of their "character pictures." After studj'ing the portraits painted by the 
old masters. Miss Gerhard has asked the question: "What qualities have 
these painters put into their work that makes them still 'alive' after 
centuries have elapsed?" It must be the soul, the real self of the subject, 
which so often eludes the camera, and now they devote themselves to 
developing this feature in their portraits. Since we are all actors, and it is 
so difficult to drop the habit of pose, she endeavors to induce her subjects 
to forget the old "sit up and look pleasant" attitude which was almost 
impossible when one's head was supported by an iron hook and which 
one could not forget for a second. To many of us the recollection of 
haNing a picture taken, or a tooth pulled, is about the same experience. 



80 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

There is a possibility, too, that when our mask is removed and we 
show our real selves, we might show other attributes than beautiful ones. 
There may be mixed and varied virtues reproduced, and when the result 
is as relentlessly telling as a Bertillon thumb imprint, the result might not 
always be pleasing. A posed picture might make a man look as though 
he were a ruler in the financial and social world, while the unposed or 
relaxed might show him as his wife or valet knows him best. These 
pictures are never retouched, stray hairs or blemishes are left just as 
the merciless camera shows them. A frown will be shown as taken, or, 
if one when relaxed is relieved of the frown the picture may show a 
beauty of expression never before noticed. The aim of the Gerhard 
pictures is the quintessence of naturalness. Groups are arranged before the 
fireplace as if in the home, chatting in cozy corners, playing games, sing- 
ing and dancing; in fact, in all the pleasures and occupations that consti- 
tute our daily life, and those we love, shown in their natural positions, 
with the question of light effect merely as an accessory. The new electric 
light used for pictures taken in the homes, has made it possible to repro- 
duce any part of a house; it is the first one used west of New York. 

When their mode of coloring or tinting photographs is used, the 
resemblance to oil paintings is startling in its result, especially when 
the "character" has been successfully drawn out of a subject. "Take, 
for instance, the portrait of a young girl of fourteen years," Miss Gerhard 
explained; "one can see that she is undeveloped — a fledgeling, her char- 
acter not yet moulded and her photograph is just a plain likeness; but — " 
showing another of the same girl, all animation, full of life and laughter, 
a hint of what life holds unfolding in her face, and the picture becomes 
a gem. Add to the facial lineaments that indefinable sometliing which 
lies dormant, a vision of the future, perhaps, and you have a treasure 
to be cherished throughout the coming years. They do not consider the 
eyes which tell such varj-ing stories, but the chin, mouth, nose, forehead 
and cheeks, furnish the desired expression. 

Many portraits were made during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition 
in 1904, when tribes from all parts of the world were represented. The 
director of the Field Museum saw the opportunity to get a valuable 
ethnological collection if he could get a photographer, so he called on 
the Gerhard Sisters. They agreed to take pictures of all the savages he 
could bring, and their collection is a rare one. 

The Gerhard Sisters attended every convention in the interest of 
photography, and their work has attracted much attention. They explain 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF, "iT. LOUIS 81 

their methods, and arc always on the lookout for new ideas, keeping 
abreast with all late developments. 

Many medals and honorable mention have been awarded them. The 
"Photo-Era," an American journal of photography, placed on its front 
cover of the September issue of 1913 one of the pictures displayed by 
them at the convention in Kansas City of the same year, and which was 
considered one of the best shown at that convention. It represented a 
young girl holding a vase of flowers, the beauty of the expression being 
caught by the camera in a charming and happy way. 

The Misses Gerhard are women of strong individuality and lovable 
temperament, and are much admired by their patrons. 



82 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



HATTIE B. GOODING 

HATTIE B. GOODING is the one person responsible for the series 
of worthy musical attractions presented to the St. Louis public 
during the season of 1913-14. There are notable names in this 
list of artists, every one being numbered among the few and truly great 
of the world, in his or her particular art. Her list was planned with the 
view of giving to St. Louis recitals, lectures, singing and dance pro- 
grammes, at reasonable figures. Miss Gooding went to New York to 
arrange with the musical managers for the attractions offered in the 
winter of 1913-14. Out of a long list she selected those who represent 
the highest in their own special field, and which she felt sure St. Louisans 
would enjoy. She chose wisely so far, as the Odeon — our largest opera 
house — is filled to its utmost capacity at every performance. The list 
began with Madame Homer, followed by Josef Hoffman, pianist, and Anna 
Pavlowa and the Russian ballet. For the last her expenses were $5,500.00 
for two nights, and the receipts $7,500.00, netting a clear gain of $2,000.00; 
her other evenings were proportionately successful financially. The 
advance sales were greater than any other city in the United States. At 
the Pavlowa concert, when Miss Gooding engaged, at the last hour, the 
Russian dancer for two nights, the New York managers became dubious 
and anxiously rushed four special advance agents to assist her. On 
seeing the bookings for both nights they quietly slipped back to New York 
fully convinced of her ability to attract audiences in St. Louis, which 
has always, heretofore, been called "the worst show town" in the country. 
Miss Gooding says proper advertising and putting on the best attractions 
will bring filled houses every time. She gives no guarantee, receives 
no commission, but pays outright the price asked for each performer, tak- 
ing chances to win. On the list for 1914 are also Mischa Elman, violinist, 
with Maggie Teyte, soprano, in joint recital; David, and his wife Clara 
Mannes, for many years concertmaster of the New York Symphony Orches- 
tra, who is an altruist and idealist. In New York City his musical settle- 
ment work has done much for poor children. Mrs. Mannes is a sister of 
Walter Damrosch, and a pianist of distinction. Helen Keller and Mrs. 
Anne Sullivan Macy, lecturing on "The Heart and Hand," and the Kneisel 
Quartette, complete the programme for 1914. 

Miss Gooding was born in St. Paul, her grandfather being one of 
the early settlers. Her mother is of Scotch descent, and Miss Gooding 
shows some of the characteristics of that nationality. Seven years ago 
Miss Gooding studied bookkeeping and stenography without the aid of 




HATTIE B. GOODING 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 83 

teachers, and took a position for the Lesan Advertising Company, which 
shortly after changed its name to the Gardner Advertising Company, in 
the capacity of stenographer. After three weeks she took up work in 
the advertising department, covering everything from face creams to 
cook stoves. Writing the special advertisements for Scruggs, Vandervoort 
& Barney Company for six months, was also one of her experiences, and 
the publicity work for the Charity Carnival in 1908 was her first big 
undertaking. For four years she has been in the advertising business for 
herself, and now the musical bureau she has established has forced her 
out of this business. Miss Gooding says while she has such splendid 
success in her dealings with musical managers, and the presentation of her 
attractions, yet she would rather take a real blood-curdling book of 
mystery and murder and a box of fudge for her own entertainment. 
Another stand that Miss Gooding takes very decidedly is that women do 
not need suffrage, which has brought out much comment. 

She is thirtj'-seven years old, being remarkably clear-sighted for one 
so young. It was she who organized the Women's City Club, which gave 
luncheons every month for the purpose of having the business women 
of the city, and others interested in municipal affairs, to come together. 
This was really the forerunner of what is now the Town Club. Miss 
Gooding works twelve hours every day, but is happy and absorbed in 
her occupation. She is a very gracious woman; of the semi-blonde type, 
ratlier tall, and mild in disposition. 



84 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. LO VIS 



MRS. E. M. GROSSMAN 

MRS. ALTHEA SOMERVILLE GROSSMAN, one of our energetic 
suffrage supporters, and the director of Self-Culture Hall for 
three years, is a broad-minded, capable woman. She has been 
active in the introduction and passage of the cliild-labor law, nine-hour 
law for women, and the law reducing the minimum age limit for school 
attendance from six to five years, and eliminating the maximum age of 
twenty altogether. 

Mrs. Grossman has had every advantage in the way of an education. 
Beginning her first school days at Mary Institute, from which she grad- 
uated in 1897, she continued with a year's study at Wellesley, then changed 
to the University of Chicago for a three years' course in sociology, litera- 
ture, English, etc. At the end of this time she took the degree of bachelor 
of philosophy. Her next step was a year at Washington University of 
this city, from which institution she received the degree of master of 
arts. Teaching at the Joliet Township High School, Joliet, 111., was 
the following year's experience. Then began more serious work in Self- 
Culture Hall. This was established as a workingmen's club, and was 
done so from a cultural standpoint by Dr. Walter Sheldon, although 
financially Dr. William Taussig was its chief supporter. 

The first idea of the founders of Self-Culture Hall was to divide the 
city into sections and organize these clubs where needed. Tliis was done, 
and after a few years the clubs broadened from cultural groups to athletic 
groups, and took in young women in addition to the original men's groups. 

After Mrs. Grossman became associated with the settlement work 
there was a still wider field covered by taking in children after school 
every day and on Saturday mornings. Up to tliis time Mrs. Washington E. 
Fischel had been overseeing domestic science groups on Saturday morn- 
ings, but there had been no arrangement made for play groups. Under 
the direction of Mrs. Grossman there were several hundred children 
taught, divided into groups of fifteen to fifty, each group being occupied 
with different employments. There were over sixty volunteer teachers. 
Basketry, sewing, carpentry, millinery, dancing, dramatics, gymnastics, 
basket ball, etc., were all taught. During the years that Mrs. Grossman 
had full charge of the hall she made her home in the building. One 
unusual fact was that there were proportionately more men in this social 
settlement than in any other organization of the kind in this country 
or England — possibly because it was originally organized for men only. 




KAJIWARA PHUT' ' 



MRS. E. M. GROSSMAN 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 85 

These settlements are not so much needed now, since the city 
government has pro\ided for playgrounds, public baths, etc. And soon 
it is hoped the school buildings will be opened in the afternoons and 
evenings for play groups and club rooms in the districts where they are 
located. To a small extent tliis is already being done in St. Louis, but 
to a larger extent by many other cities. 

Wliile living in the Self-Culture Hall neighborhood, Mrs. Grossman 
had many opportunities for seeing and investigating factory conditions — 
which she did in a very thorough and earnest manner. The result was 
she became vei-y much interested in wages, hours, health proposi- 
tions, etc., affecting women, and much of the credit of the passage of 
the nine-hour law — allowing women to work only nine hours each day — 
and the child-labor law, by wliich no children under fourteen years are 
permitted to work, and only at certain occupations when older, in no 
dangerous employment, around machinery, poisons or otherwise injurious 
occupations, is due to her. 

Just about this time romance in the life of Mrs. Grossman began to 
weave itself around the dry, musty bills and laws, entangling Mr. E. M. 
Grossman, who was the attorney for the Social Legislation Committee, 
and their combined efforts in preparing and getting the bills passed 
succeeded in bringing them closely together, so that after her work as 
secretary of the Social Legislation Committee was finished they were 
married, and making their home in St. Louis, have continued in similar 
lines of worthy effort. Mrs. Grossman is, in one way or another, con- 
nected with all the progressive and social economic movements of the city. 

As the secretary of the Committee for Social Legislation, Mrs. Gross- 
man's headquarters were in the Security Building. This committee was 
formed of fourteen organizations throughout the State — all of the women's 
clubs of the State forming one committee, the State Federation of Labor 
another, the Missouri Teachers' Association still another, and so on. One 
of the moves that counted most when the officers went to Jefferson City 
to pass the bill was that tliis committee took with them factory women 
from all over the State, and had them relate their actual experiences, and 
lay bare the truth of their condition as to hours of labor, wages, sur- 
roundings, etc. 

Working with Mrs. Grossman for many years was Mrs. D. W. Knefler, 
the organizer and president of the Woman's Trade Union League, and 
until recently, when she moved to California, the campaign manager of 
the Equal Suffrage League. 

At Self-Culture Hall Mrs. Knefler organized the Woman's Trade 
Union League. Mrs. Grossman and Mrs. Knefler were two of the five 



86 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

women present at the first organization meeting of the league, which is 
now thousands strong. Mrs. Knefler was one of the most efficient volun- 
teer workers in Self-Culture Hall, being active in directing the older 
girls and being especially interested in the Mothers' Clubs. In the meet- 
ings of the clubs a main object was to teach the fathers and mothers, and 
even children, the ordinances and laws which govern the city, to know 
the agencies through which reports could be made so that they could 
understand the necessity of sanitary laws — having sewers kept in good 
repair, garbage emptied regularly, objectionable people removed from 
their neighborhood, etc. 

Like many others, these club members were totally uneducated as to 
the information people should have in order to protect themselves in 
their own location, and later, when moving to other parts of the city, they 
had learned how to protect themselves and their families, and what were 
their municipal rights and privileges. Poverty is not the worst condition 
in those districts; it is the crowding and misunderstanding of widely 
different nationalities grouped in neighborhoods, or crowded in them, 
and the social difficulties that arise cut of such misunderstandings and 
their lack of knowledge of American habits of life and institutions. The 
only value in social work — in settlement work — is when people are taught 
the laws that protect them and are not obliged to call on some subsidized 
institution. 

Mrs. Grossman has the happy, confident personality that soon won 
her the confidence of the settlement people, and with Mrs. Knefler's assist- 
ance for about tliree years, they laid a foundation in the lives of the small 
and larger girls for earnest, useful lives that can not be overestimated. 
It was this experience that caused them to realize that there was some- 
thing fundamentaUy wrong when perfectly healthy young women were so 
tired and weary after a day's work that one could not do anytliing with 
them, except to give them a kind of recreation; girls who had good 
bodies and good minds and still were wholly unable to do anything except 
the very Lightest sort of recreational work. This was all a result of the 
long hours, high-speed machinery, poorly ventilated shops and generally 
bad sanitary and working conditions. The nine-hour law for women was 
the outcome. When, in 1909, this bill was urged, everything happened to 
it that could possibly happen in a legislature with over 200 men acting 
upon it. 

The bin was passed, but was so full of flaws that the only course 
was to have it declared unconstitutional and go home and draft another. 
For this the best attorneys were secured and Mr. Grossman was one of 
them. The biU was again presented, and while it found many friends 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 87 

and supporters in the Legislature, there were also many opponents in 
the manufacturers', laundrymen's and retailers' associations. However, 
mainly through the work of Senator Thomas E. Kinney, it passed and 
has been a boon to thousands of women ever since. 

As one of the ardent suffrage workers in Missouri, much can be said of 
Mrs. Grossman. Like almost all others, she can not remember not being 
a sufi'ragist. Ever since she knew what the meaning of the word implies, 
belief in equal suffrage has been a natural thing. She feels that participa- 
tion in government is a responsibility that adults, whether male or female, 
have no right to shirk. Mrs. Grossman has been a member of the Board 
of Equal Suffrage ever since its formation. There, as in her social 
legislation work, she and Mr. Grossman have been closely associated. 
It was not through her influence but through his own convictions, when 
they were merely acquaintances that Mr. Grossman became one of the, 
at that time, few male members of the league, when for a man even to 
attend a suffrage talk was a joke. Now a large audience is composed of 
men and women in about equal numbers. 

Mrs. Grossman is a member of the St. Louis Artists' Guild, College 
and Wednesdaj^ Clubs, and The Players. Since her marriage and the 
advent of twin daughters she spends about all of her time formerly given 
to social work and the various club interests in the nursery and working 
for woman's suffrage. 

Mrs. Grossman is large, an unusually tall woman of the blonde type. 
She has been called a daughter of the Vikings. She is amiable and even 
in temperament, and recognized as a force in whatever she may undertake. 

Her father is William Somerville, born in the West Indies, and her 
mother, Harriet PuUis, of St. Louis. Archie and William are her brothers; 
Clara, who is also greatly interested in the suffrage movement, and Mrs. 
Philip Wilson, of Vancouver, B. C, are her sisters. Mr. E. M. Grossman 
is a German, born in Vienna. 



88 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MISS FLORENCE HAYWARD 

ST. LOUISANS point with pride to Miss Florence Hayward, who is 
best known for her "Travel Letters," miscellaneous contributions 
to magazines, as founder of the Artists' Guild of this city, and for 
her very successful work while the only woman on the Board of Com- 
missioners for the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1904. 

Miss Hayward was presented at the English Court, as well as the 
Vatican, where a private audience with the Pope was granted her. In 
1904 she was made Officer d'Instruction Publique, a section of the French 
Academy, by the French Government. 

The directors of the World's Fair presented her, in recognition of 
distinguished services, with the same kind of medal that was sent to the 
Kings, the Pope, and other heads of nations. 

The Royal Society of Arts of Great Britain appointed her a member, 
and also a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, both being under 
the patronage of the King. 

For the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, held in 1904, Miss Hayward 
obtained from King Edward the loan of the Jubilee presents of his mother. 
Queen Victoria. This was soinething that had never been done before, 
all the principal cities of Great Britain and Canada having previously been 
refused a loan exhibit of the collection. 

Miss Hayward's success in the matter grew out of an acquaintance 
with international politics, and her taking advantage of the Venezuelan 
situation as between Great Britain and the United States. She suggested 
to the King, through tlie Ambassador, that he show his friendlj' feehng 
to the United States by making this loan. The presents were sent to 
the United States whoUy through her diplomatic efforts, and she was 
allowed to make her own selections from the palaces and museums. Six 
policemen — or guards — accompanied the sliipnient, the commission being 
bestowed as a reward of merit for good service in the police department. 
Her experiences, during the time she served in the capacity of commis- 
sioner, are highly entertaining. 

"Travel Letters" to the different newspapers in this city from abroad, 
for many years, were done in a clever and interesting stj'le and were 
eagerly looked forward to by the many readers with keen anticipation. 
They were sent from England, Italy, France and other countries, and 
were about everything she saw and heard — musical and dramatic criti- 
cisms, descriptions of eminent people, customs, habits, mannerisms, 
character sketches, interviews, etc. For many years she has been a 





^; 



-^"S^/1"^ d* •■ 



r 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS FLORENCE HAYWARD 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 89 

contributor to "Century" and "Harper" magazines in America, and 
"Country Life," "Pall Mall Gazette," "Jerome's Idler" and the "Daily MaU" 
in London. 

For a long time she was the only woman writer for English "Country 
Life." 

As the founder of the Artists' Guild, Miss Hayward has done a lasting 
good to the city of St. Louis, as well as giving the members a club that 
affords a delightful association among gifted people. Her idea of organ- 
izing was to establish a permanent guild; the "Painters," "Brush and 
Pencil" Clubs, and others, had not lasted, and no club of a special line 
of art had been successful ; she thought by bringing together the painters, 
sculptors, architects, musicians and literary people, it would prove inter- 
esting to all, and time has proven her to have been right. 

The first meetings were held at the home of Miss Hayward for nearly 
two j'ears; later when the number grew larger — in other places; first in 
the old art museum, and after that in club rooms of their own in different 
localities, until the erection of their new building on Union Avenue, of 
which Mr. Louis Spiering was the capable architect. The membership is 
limited to about two hundred. The work of the members is on exhibition 
to the public, and is open at all times. Miss Hayward at present is the 
secretary of the guild. 

She has held that office several times. She also has been the treasurer, 
as well as chairman of the examination committee — a title corresponding 
to that of president. 

Miss Hayward was born in New Mexico. Her father. Col. George A. 
Hayward, of the Confederate Army, came to St. Louis after the war, 
with his family. Attending the public school, where the solid part of her 
education was acquired she later graduated from Mary Institute. Her 
writing began while attending that institution by contributing to the 
Washington University students' paper — a forerunner of what is now 
called "Student Life." Miss Hayward has twice been the president of the 
Alumnae Association of Mary Institute. 

Just after finishing school she was on a railway journey in company 
with one of the editors of a St. Louis paper. He became very ill and was 
much worried because he could not write an article which was promised 
for a certain time. Miss Hayward — in jest — offered to do it for him, and 
he consented. It turned out to be very satisfactory, and as a result she 
was offered the position of a regular contributor. That was for the 
old "Spectator." This work was continued for two years before any of 
the members of her family knew of it. In fact, she had not told anyone, 
and would often hear these articles discussed, much to her amusement. 



90 ^'OTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

While away from home on a visit she thought it would be a good 
time to inform them of what she had been doing — not being sure just 
how they would feel about it. She was delighted to receive a reply from 
her father saying, "You go right on; I am proud of you." He thought 
she ought not to take pay, but she felt if her work was worth publisliing 
it was worth being paid for. Miss Hayward says she has always been 
one of the highest paid contributors to the papers or magazines with 
which she has been connected, and she has never had the disappointment 
of having a manuscript rejected. This is partly due to the fact that she 
understands well just what line of communications and subjects each 
paper or magazine demands. 

In 1892 there was a wonderful season of opera in Chicago, and she 
wanted very much to hear it entire, but knew that she could not afford to 
attend every performance, for two or three weeks. After thinking over 
how she might arrange to have this advantage, she decided to have an 
interview with a newspaper editor and suggest his sending her to Chicago 
to write a series of articles and criticisms in advance of the St. Louis 
season. She received the appointment, and the Chicago season just pre- 
ceding the one in St. Louis enabled her to become acquainted with all the 
new singers, attend the rehearsals, and during the St. Louis season to 
tell the public in the morning just what they might look forward to that 
evening. 

She attended eight performances a week, and in two weeks wrote 
sixteen columns — over a column a day. In this she was very much 
assisted by Pol Plancon, the De Rezkes, Emma Eames, also other noted 
singers in the company. At the end of her work in St. Louis, Mr. Grau 
asked her to become his press representative, but this oifer she declined. 

During her residence in London writing dramatic and musical criti- 
cisms, she began conti'ibuting to magazines, both American and EngUsh, 
while sending letters to the daily papers in St. Louis, as a special corre- 
spondent, on any subject that came before the public which she thought 
might be of general interest. 

In 1896, returning to St. Louis, she remained only six weeks, then went 
abroad again and stayed until 1899. All this time she still wrote for 
various American and English papers. 

A spectacular play called "America" was given at the Chicago Audi- 
torium during the World's Fair there. The agent was very anxious for 
the World's Fair directors of St. Louis to let him put this on during 
the Exposition. Of course he wanted a tremendous guarantee. To Miss 
Hayward he proposed since she knew the directors and had seen the play 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 91 

in Chicago that she put it favorably before them at their convention, and 
if a contract were made a commission would be given her. 

Miss Hayward wanted to know why he did not come to St. Louis with 
it independently of the exposition directors, as he had done in Chicago. 
The agent stated that the pla}' was given in connection with the Chicago 
World's Fair, and that it was owing to the money it had made for the 
Chicago Exposition that bankruptcy was avoided. Then she insisted on 
seeing the books, which was refused. Miss Hayward went to Chicago and 
requested the director of the Auditorium to give her the facts. There 
she learned that this company had nothing to do with the fair. She 
returned to St. Louis, going to the director of concessions, whom she made 
acquainted with these facts; also related how she had acquired the 
information and was invited to explain before the board of directors, who 
were considering that verj^ matter at the time. This proposition, owing 
to the revelation of the real state of affairs, was promptly rejected. The 
president of the board tendered his thanks and expressed the wish that 
she would continue her interest in the fair. She answered, "I will, if 
you will pay me for it — I want an appointment." 

"We will send you abroad," he said. 

"I want to be a commissioner." 

"But we have no women on the board." 

"Well, put one on then," she quickly retorted. 

And thej"^ did. She was appointed at once and given a very high 
salary to go abroad and select material to exliibit at the Exposition from 
any country. Going directly to London she found things in a very 
unfavorable condition, as they had just recovered from the Boer War. 
Instead of beginning with the manufacturers — who generally exhibit — 
she went to the King for the Queen's Jubilee presents. Just before leaving 
the United States she had told the executive committee that she would 
secure these for exhibition, and they warned her that she might as well 
try to bring over Westminster Abbey. At the next meeting of President 
D. R. Francis and the commissioners in London, it was her pleasure 
to inform them of her success. 

Her next move was to go to Italy and get the Pope to give his consent 
to making a Vatican exhibit, which had never been done before. The 
Pope had made individual loans, but the Vatican, as a government, had 
never done so. Through Cardinal Satolli arrangements were consummated. 

On her return from abroad and while in New York, the executive 
committee expressed a desire for her to go to Canada, where a local 
fair was being held in Toronto, and make arrangements for a cattle 
exhibit in St. Louis. This she did, and on her return the post of Com- 



92 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. LOUIS 

niissioner of History was also offered. To this she agreed on condition 
that she might include the Queen's Jubilee presents in the historical sec- 
tion, and the Vatican exhibit as well, giving her a good nucleus, to which 
were added valuable and rare records of the States of the Louisiana Pur- 
chase, all the archives of the Cabildo, New Orleans, treaties, documents 
of the Jesuit relations from Quebec and some from Baltimore. Miss 
Hayward's was the first exhibit closed and made sliipshape after the fair. 

Miss Hayward has two principles in writing — the minor one is to 
work away at her copy until it reads easily, and to choose carefully the 
publication to which she sends it. The major principle is embodied 
in Henry Van Dyke's "Request," which she always has before her. 

"Lord, let me never tag a moral to a story, nor tell a story without a 
meaning. Make me respect my material so much that I can not slight 
my work. Help me to deal very honorably with words and people, 
because they are both alive. Show me in writing — as in a river — clearness 
is the quality most to be desired. Teach me to see the local color without 
being blind to the inner light. Give me an ideal that will stand the strain 
of weaving human stuff on the loom of the real. Keep me from caring 
more for books than for folks, for art than for life. Steady me to do 
my full stint of work as well as I may. And when that is done stop 
me — pay me what wages thou wilt, and help me to say from a quiet 
heart a grateful Amen." 

Miss Hayward's father died about two years ago. He was connected 
with the history of the early days of St. Louis, the remarkable feats of the 
Mexican War, and the pioneer life of New Mexico. She makes her home 
with her mother. Two sisters — Fanita, Mrs. George Niedringhaus of 
St. Louis; Edwin, Mrs. George Higginbotham of Toronto, and Harry E. 
and John P., her brothers, constitute the family. 

Miss Hayward is a delightful companion and associate. She is out- 
spoken and yet politic; keenly alive to the happenings of the world — her 
wide experience in travel and association with noted men and women, 
her innate culture and remarkable fund of information make her one of 
the foremost writers of the city. 




SCHERER PHOTO 



MISS ANNA C. HEDGES 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 93 



MISS ANNA C. HEDGES 

THE honor of being chosen the first woman professor in any EngUsh 
university fell to the lot of one of our St. Louis women. Miss Anna 
C. Hedges, who was offered the chair of household economy in the 
University of New Zealand in 1909. New Zealand is far advanced, in educa- 
tion and politics, along strongly Socialistic lines. There are no paupers 
there. Women have had a voice in affairs equal to that of the men for 
years, but that was the first time the teaching of household arts was 
dignified with equal academic rank to other studies in a university. A 
Senator from New Zealand was the envoy, John Studholme, a wealthy 
ranchman, who after a search which took him through England and 
Canada, found Miss Hedges, whom he selected as ideally equipped for the 
place. 

Miss Hedges was born in St. Louis in 1868. Beginning at the Webster 
public school, then the tiigh school, and afterwards in special courses 
at Washington University, she has had unusual advantages in academic 
training for professional service. She was also a student of the Art School 
of Washington Universitj' for several years and did considerable work 
in crayon and portraiture. She had great skill in music, being among the 
advanced pupils of Robert Goldbeck and Ernest Kroeger. She took up 
music as a profession and for ten years maintained a large class. Later 
she began the study of woman's work — domestic art — deciding that tliis 
was a worthy field for her activities. In 1898 she attended Drexel Insti- 
tute, graduating there from the course in domestic science. Then the death 
of her mother brought her to St. Louis for a short time in 1898. Again 
she returned to the East, taking advanced courses at Teachers' College, 
Columbia University. Graduating from there she went to Indianapolis, 
where she introduced domestic science and domestic art at the Girls' 
Classical School, conducted by May Wright Sewell. In 1900 she came 
to St. Louis to introduce the second branch of the work in the St. Louis 
public schools, at the Stoddard School, and in 1903 into the McKinley 
High School. In 1904 she received the call to Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 
N. Y., as director of the domestic art department, remaining there until 
the summer of 1907, when the principalship of the Hebrew Technical 
School for Girls in New York City presented to her a broader field of 
work. It might be interesting here to note that this a wonderful school 
for girls, started by a former St. Louisan, Nathaniel Meyers, now and for 



94 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



many years the legal head of the United States Rubber Company. This 
technical school is heavily endowed by the wealthy Hebrews of New 
York, its board of directors representing the great business genius of the 
Jewish element of New York City. During these years she continued her 
work at Columbia College, receiving the degree of B. S. in 1904, and A. 
M. in 1905. Then in 1909 came the call to New Zealand. This progressive 
government desiring to place woman's work on the highest possible and 
most progressive plane, sought the most capable American representative 
to introduce the work in that country. While preparing to make the 
long journey and expatriate herself for four years, she was taken ill 
with a serious attack of appendicitis, which compelled her to forego this 
exceptional appointment and opportunity. Immediately after her recovery 
she determined to become a candidate for doctor of philosophy at Colum- 
bia University, her thesis being "Education for a Factory Girl." Research 
material has been obtained by her during the past two years from per- 
sonal inquiry into the working conditions of women in twentj'-five large 
Eastern textile mills and manufacturing plants, it being her purpose to 
shortly establish herself as a consultant on work conditions for women, 
with the following ideas in view: 

Advising with employers on helpful work relations with their em- 
ployes, selecting and placing trained women in charge of the women 
workers, organizing service departments to include employment, work 
conditions, prevention of accidents and sickness, instruction and training 
of employes, thrift, and arranging school and factory co-operative classes 
for instruction of operatives. 

Miss Hedges is distinctly a St. Louis woman. Her work calls her 
to many cities, yet we hope that soine department may be created whereby 
our own city may benefit by her splendid ability in the lines she is so 
eminently fitted to manage. The Pratt Institute, in a bulletin published 
by them weekly, expressed great regret on the resignation of Miss Hedges 
to accept the principalship of the Hebrew Technical School for Girls, 
and paid her the tribute of saying that, "While she has done admirable 
work during her two years with them, yet quite as much as her excep- 
tionally good work were her fine spirit of enthusiasm and helpful co-opera- 
tion which commended her to all with whom she came in contact." Her 
going brought to the school "one of the most serious losses it has ever 
sustained." Miss Hedges has established a model plant in New York 
City, among the undergarment woi'kers. In 1913, as a delegate to the 
Conservation Congress in Indianapolis, she constructed a inodel house 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOVJS 95 

for $1,000. President Wilson, then a candidate lor office, passed through 
there, and after inspecting this model house was enthusiastic in his praise 
of her plans for conserving the time and energj' of women in their homes. 
Miss Hedges is the daughter of the late Isaac A. Hedges (known through- 
out the United States among the farmers as the inventor of the Little 
Giant Corn Mill and the apostle of the sorghum industry), and Dorothea 
Ebel, of Bremen, who taught German in the public schools of Cincinnati, 
where she and Mr. Hedges were married during the war. Isaac A. Hedges 
came to St. Louis in 1836, and until his death here in 1882 was a well- 
known and respected citizen. 

Miss Hedges is a brilliant and scholarly woman, and withal has a 
personality so pleasing and attractive that success is hers in whatever 
branch of noble endeavor she is engaged. 



96 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I 8 



M 



MISS MARTHA H. HOKE 

ISS MARTHA HOKE bears the distinction of being the only 
painter of miniatures in St. Louis. Her Utile portraits on ivory 
are cherished treasures. The likeness is perfect, brilliantly col- 
ored, and exquisitely finished, and so small and dainty as to be held in 
the hollow of one's hand. 

She was the first person in St. Louis to make drawings for newspaper 
illustrations. Her father, Joseph W. Hoke, made a discovery in the line 
of engraving which he perfected by much experiment upon plates capable 
of producing, in a very short time, a tjqje which could be set up with 
reading matter. This was the first successful engraving process using 
the artist's drawing directly. Miss Hoke gave her father much assistance 
in the trial drawings necessary to perfect this method. 

All illustrations had, up to that time, been engraved on wood, or steel, 
or stone, or etched on copper. Mr. Hoke jjrepared a chalk composition, 
baked upon a steel plate, of such consistency that a drawing could readily 
be made by a pointed stylus bent at such an angle that when held as a 
pen or pencil the point would be vertical. 

The drawing so made is placed in a stereotj'ping box and as a matrix 
it is cast in type metal. This type could be produced in a very short time. 
The possibilities for newspaper illustrations — which previous to that 
had been very meager and poor — were developed by an emergency, which 
at once placed this invention in great demand and general use. The 
event which so suddenlj' brought success financially was a murder at the 
Southern Hotel by a man named Maxwell, who hid the body of his victim, 
Preller, in a trunk which he left in a room he had occupied. The discovery 
of this brought out an extra edition of one of the daily papers, with a 
drawing by Miss Hoke. This famous case made chalk plates known to 
all newspapers everywhere. 

Since then newspapers are more and more filled with better illustra- 
tions, but while other and newer processes have been found, the chalk 
plate is famous as the beginning of all this, and is still a very generally 
used and valuable process, by which, for instance, all the weather maps of 
the bureau service are made in America, as well as other countries. Mr. 
Hoke secured the use of this invention by means of patents and his 
sons now carry on the manufacture of the plates, etc. 

Miss Hoke, with a girl student, well-known now as a painter and 
teacher of art. Miss Lillian M. Brown, opened a studio for newspaper 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS MARTHA H. HOKE 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 97 

and commercial illustrating in connection with the offices of the Hoke 
Engraving Plate Company. 

The years spent in this work were very rich in practical experience, 
giving a taste of the very fascinating life that centers about journalism. 
For several years Miss Hoke made all the illustrations for the "Globe- 
Democrat." During this period, however, the summers were spent in 
travel and study. Rendering impressions of the outdoor world, sea, sky, 
field, marsh, limpid pool, as well as of figures in action and in repose, 
were to her of sufficient importance to warrant the taking out of the 
bank the savings of a busy season's work, packing her easel and paint 
box with a generous supply of water colors, and in company with associates 
as enthusiastic as herself journeying forth to all parts of the earth in 
search of the picturesque. 

Water color is a favorite medium of this artist. Her facility in 
drawing, or rather her knowledge gained by constant use of the eye and 
hand with a view to graphic, forceful presentment of various subjects, 
led her to portray the figure with a sure touch and to eliminate any 
vagueness in landscape. These tfualities are necessary to a water colorist, 
for the painting of a good aquarelle is like taking a dive — there must 
be no hesitation, no second attempt — just one plunge, and all is done. 
This is in direct contrast with the gradual development of the oil canvas 
from the broad lay-in, with its strong undertones, upon which the solid 
modeling is built, the color reflections and secondary effects of light, to 
a part of the composition which may readily be changed at any time, 
and the color values experimented with until the strongest harmony is 
developed. 

Miss Hoke believes that the drawing of a water color, whether figure 
or landscape, must be very sure, the colors laid on positively in just the 
place where the desired effect is required, and the whole done while the 
paper remains in the saturated state known as "puddly," the skillful 
placing of the accents to be saved for the last few moments when the 
thick paper is really moist beneath and the surface all but dry — so that it 
receives and retains a positive touch of bright, deep color. 

There are many water colors from Miss Hoke's brush, the result of 
her summer's sketching trips to the Massachusetts and Maine coasts, 
Italj', and the Spring and Autumn bits in the suburbs of the city, as well 
as those done in her studio. That studio is the center of a most charming 
circle of congenial people, possessed of an artistic adaptability working 
under the influence of a common desire to accomplish something worth 
wliile. 



98 NOTA.BLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

The studio itself is a spacious, light-flooded, quiet-toned room, not 
arranged for effect, but just as a big, happy workshop filled with material 
in the way of rich and brilliant color suggestions, and in rare old fabrics 
gathered from everywhere. This is reached by passing through a slightly 
more formal exhibition studio. The feeling upon entering is one of 
expanding contentment of the eye. A child brought there with its mother 
walked about for a few moments very quietly absorbing in its sensitive 
way this peaceful influence — which had been remarked upon by many 
older persons — then stopped, and, taking a long breath, said with a 
decided air: "I should so like to live here." This was perhaps because 
children had lived there, for it had been the sheltering home of three 
cliildren now grown, and also of others, all of whom know and love 
"Aunt Martha" and her studio. 

The special work by which Miss Hoke is best known is her miniature 
painting. This art grows directly out of the water color painting. Though 
she has an equal liking for the broad sweep of hills and landscape, and is 
said by her fellow artists to do things in a "big way," yet the quaint bril- 
liance of the water color upon ivory, the character of a miniature as a 
precious personal treasure appeals more to her taste. The work can be 
done only when she is in the right mood, and most of the time a large mag- 
nifying glass must be used. This is adjusted a certain distance over the 
work, making possible the delicate strokes required. 

Her work has created such a demand that she was soon in the posi- 
tion of a specialist. One of her first portraits, a child of Dr. A. H. Fuller, 
was exhibited in the Paris Salon. Among her many sitters have been 
members of the families of the most distinguished and prominent resi- 
dents of St. Louis. 

Miss Hoke holds that no country is more paintable than her own. 
The environs of St. Louis are full of variety and grandeur, and in the 
spring and fall of subtle, tender or gorgeously variegated color. But 
fresh inspiration is often found in study trips to the coast or abroad. In 
her studio are now the oil and pastel sketches which she brought from 
Florence and Venice. The picturesque grandeur of Italian landscapes 
has had its effect upon her. There is a transition to a new stj'le. The 
Venetian subjects are not handled in the usual manner, but in each small 
pastel there is seen the distinctive quality which artists, for want of a 
better term, call decorative. However, the portraits will always be the 
most important, for in them she finds most satisfactory opportunity to 
delineate character with strong truthfulness. 

The distinctive character in landscape, as well as in that highest of 
all studies, human nature, seems now for her to require for its adequate 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 99 

presentment more insight into the wonders of light and color. Miss Hoke 
calls it a most alluring and happy mode of life — the joy of doing things 
with one's own hands — of using the material of flowing color, plastic clay, 
or the metals, or what-not of the craft worker, in the artist's absorbing 
vocation. She has never put forth the effort for place and position which 
she really deserves, finding imperative the call on her domestic and moth- 
ering instincts by those brought within her home, toward whom she felt 
she must give her cai'e and comfort. Nevertheless, while her reputation 
was first established abroad, she has made an enviable record and placed 
herself on the highest plane as an artist in this country also. Perhaps few 
can claim a more satisfying measure of return. 

In her work Miss Hoke has shown two marked characteristics — an 
ability to practicably apply her knowledge of art so as from her student 
days to have been independent, and a perception of what painting means, 
which has led her intuitivelj' to scorn a small success based on superficial 
cleverness, and to avoid fads in art. Tliis kept her among what are now 
known as the "sane and normal" as contrasted with those in sympathy 
with the modern startling tangents. 

Miss Hoke is a St. Louisan, born and reared. Passing through the 
high school she merely continued in studying art what she had begun 
under her father in early cliildhood. While attending school she was 
constantly designing for embroideries and other decorative purposes. 

It was very fortunate for her future that some friends remembered 
her success in designing embroideries for her mother, and through their 
influence received her introduction to the art world in becoming a pupil 
of the art school at the time when that school was training in its studio 
many who have since become famous. Her work as a student was 
markedly strong. In a word she easily gained what is called a studio 
reputation. This is valuable, and medals and honors have their signifi- 
cance. Miss Hoke received a water color medal and one for constructive 
drawing, with the offer of scholarships which would have led to a broader 
field if she had chosen to accept them in preference to quietly carrying 
on her duties in her home. 

Miss Hoke is a strong, serious, middle-aged woman. Simply gowned, 
with her white hair and placid countenance she is an ideal "Aunt Martha." 



100 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 



M 



MRS. FANNIE E. McKINNEY HUGHEY 

RS. FANNIE E. McKINNEY HUGHEY, born of foreign missionary 
parents in D'Urban, Natal, South Africa, represents in her 
indiAiduahty, as she often quotes from the plant culturist — Luther 
Burbank — the "stored up en-saronments of widely differing nationalities 
and geographical conditions." 

Some of her ancestors were among the early settlers in the colonies. 
One of these belonged to the company made interesting by Richard 
Mather's story of the voyage from Southampton, England, in the 
"James" in 1635. Thirteen of her ancestors fought in the French and 
Indian wars, and one, "Deacon Chapin," is an interesting figure in liistory 
and story, whose statue — the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, called 
"The Puritan" — is one of the conspicuous monuments in Springfield, 
Mass. Two bronze copies of tliis may be found — one in the Dresden Gal- 
lery and the other in the Louvre, Paris, while a colossal statue of the same 
confronts the visitor on entering the Art Museum in Forest Park, St. Louis. 

The qualities of the New England pioneer mingle with those of the 
family of Mrs. Hughey's father, who were prominent in Southern New 
York and Northern Virginia all through the life of the colonies, and the 
subsequent history of the United States. 

After the death of Mrs. McKinney in South Africa, Mr. McKinney was 
forced to return to his native land on account of the ill-health of his 
daughter, Fannie, and because of this urgent need, boarded the first 
vessel coming into port. This was a freight vessel, with a prize cargo 
of saltpetre for the federal army, which was in the midst of its struggle 
with the Southern States in the War of the Rebellion. 

Of this voyage, Mrs. Hughey has a fund of thrilling stories as well as 
many anecdotes. She likes to tell of the custom of Sunday evening pray- 
ers on deck at the sunset hour. Her father had a very good tenor voice, 
and as he led the hymns, his clear tones mingled with those of the others, 
the soft sounds of the water, together with the wonderful changing colors 
of the ocean, made a never-to-be effaced impression of the exquisite 
harmony of colors, music, parental and di\ine love, and to those influences 
Mrs. Hughey attributes the beginning of what later has developed into her 
method of teaching music by the color system. 

Her book on this method, "Color Music for Children," which was 
published in 1912 by G. Schirmer, New York, is calculated for and 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS, FANNIE E. McKINNEY-HUGHEY 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF STL0VI8 101 

addressed to babes and kindergarten pupils. As Mrs. Hughey rightly 
observes : 

"Instruction began formerly with the adult's conception of things; 
the object being to impart this knowledge to the child. Modern methods 
begin with the child's experience, and the things which interest him, and 
broaden out to include the whole field of learning. A child's imagination 
is very active and sensitive; his power of imitation is just as keen. His 
world is made up of imagination and imitation. If we would have him 
love music and desire it, we must go to him where he is, rather than 
expect him to come to us with our grown-up ideas. 

"If we would help him to think, feel, render and love music, we must 
teach him b\' imagerj', mimicry and imagination. So we associate musi- 
cal sounds with colors, making pictures for the eye and pictures for the 
ear, and in order to make the pictures definite and reasonable the colors 
are given the shapes of birds, because birds are not only pretty to look at 
but to listen to. Thus the little ones learn to write and render music as 
thej' learn to paint a picture or compose a story." 

The interesting part of Mrs. Hughey's system is that she insists it is 
best to begin music before a child is able to walk, in happy play with its 
mother. Little children, three, four and five years old, can learn music 
faster and more accurately' and enjoy the studj' more than at any later 
period, provided they have the right start. A little child wiU hardly learn 
to love music when it is plumped down on a hard music stool, and 
watched by a severe instructress while stumbling through the scales and 
five-finger exercises, its eyes anxiously fixed on the guiding lead pencil. 
No wonder children look upon it as a distasteful task, and conceive a 
lasting hatred for music lessons. 

From earliest infancy children are attracted by colors; Mrs. Hughey 
has simply taken advantage of this fact and developed a natural and logi- 
cal system from it. A thorough test of the color method has been made 
before presenting it to the public, and the eagerness with which children 
take up the lessons, and their enthusiasm over the work, have amply 
demonstrated its practicability. By its means the drudgery attendant 
upon the first period of the child's musical studies is entirely eliminated. 

Work becomes play; rapid progress is made in ear training, in accu- 
racy in determining intervals, and in technic. In class work the color 
method is a fascinating process, the children vying with each other in eager 
endeavor. 

The method may be adopted by the mother in the nursery for the 
instruction of her own children; any private student may use it with a 
small group of children belonging to the families of friends and neighbors 



102 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 

as an amateur instructor, and the professional music and public school 
teacher may apply it to their regular classes. 

The part played by color is easily grasped. Tonic, Dominant and 
Tliird are the tliree primary colors, red, blue and yellow, respectively; the 
second is Orange (red plus yellow) ; and the fourth is Green (blue plus 
yellow), the Octave light red; the sixth Violet (blue and light red), and 
the seventh Pink (violet and light red) . Instead of tliese technical names 
for the scale degrees, the Tonic Sol-fa names doh, ray, me, fah, soh, lah, 
te, are used, and the colors are supposed to be brought down from Rain- 
bow Land by beautiful, bright-hued birds with sweet, soft voices that 
sound the several tones. The Doh-bird comes down first, then the Soh- 
bird, and so on. The children place the tacks corresponding in color to 
the several birds on the appropriate "perches" (lines or spaces) ; they are 
taught to sing the tones in perfect tune and to point out the proper "nest" 
(piano-key) for each bird. All this is in the spirit of happy play and 
innocent rivalry. 

Mrs. Hughey's education has been rather out of the regular order. 
Owing to poor health she spent a part of her early life in the invalid's chair 
or bed, and much of her time when not suffering greatly from pain and 
weakness was occupied in developing some subject in which she was for 
the time especially interested. In this way she learned how to tliink, how 
to search for desired information, and how to express herself. 

At a very early age she showed great devotion to music and later 
became very fond of writing. Her studies during those years were carried 
on with frequent interruptions, which acted as a stimulus to her mental 
endeavor, either in private lessons with her father or small private schools; 
and she claims that the intimate association with her teachers was a far 
better education than all the text books which she might have had. After 
a partial college course in the Western Seminary at Oxford, Oliio, she 
seemed drawn about equally toward a musical and literary career. Fol- 
lowing a period of sickness were four years of great activity as a teacher 
of music in a private school in Pliiladelphia. During this time she also 
studied piano with William H. Sherwood, and later entered the musical 
conservatory of Ingham University at Le Roy, N. Y., which was the first 
woman's university in the United States. From there she went to 
Rochester, N. Y., to take a special course under Mrs. C. S. P. Gary, and 
the following year, 1880, graduated from the Lyons Musical Academy 
in Lyons, N. Y. 

The next season was spent in Boston studying musical composition 
and pipe organ with Eugene Thayer, and piano with Wm. H. Sherwood. 
Such opportunities proved too great a temptation to her ambition and again 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O V I S 103 

she taxed her limited strength beyond endurance, and just as she was 
timidly bowing to possible success her health gave way and she was 
forced to abandon all hopes of concert life. 

While in Pliiladelphia she also studied composition with Dr. Hugh A. 
Clarke, and rythmic law, melodic forms, kindergarten principles and prac- 
tices and various philosophical deductions with Mr. Daniel Batcheller. 
Some of her associates there were Ida Waugh, the child painter; Fred 
Waugh, the landscape artist; Theodore Presser of the Etude, and others 
more or less known to fame. 

Mrs. Hughey's fondness for analysis and enjoyment of a keen argu- 
ment dates far back to earliest childhood when, oftentimes too weak to 
play, she would lie in her father's arms and listen to animated discussions 
with some visiting clergyman, lawyer or college professor; and those 
debates created a desire to know what is really true and right and to 
choose always the good in life. 

The first work in Missoui'i done by Mrs. Hughey was in foreign mis- 
sionary circles and for the W. C. T. U. Later when obliged to return to 
music teaching to help provide a home for a little son and daughter, she 
was surprised to find musical thought in the West not yet up to the 
advanced ideas which she had studied in the East before her marriage. 

The first attention attracted to Mrs. Hughey's musical work in 
St. Louis was because of an unusual intelligence which became a charac- 
teristic of the playing of her pupils. Instead of being poor copyists of their 
teacher, they exliibited an ability to recognize the content of a musical 
work, and to acquire an independent, although correct expression of it. 

During this period her work in organizing and conducting the "study 
class" of the Union Musical Club attracted wide interest, the plan being 
copied by others in the National Federation of Musical Clubs, and the 
idea being written up by Eastern and Northern papers and magazines. 
This chairmanship was only resigned in order to take the presidency of 
the club; she is still giving practical aid to interests begun in that class. 

In 1905 the attention of music lovers was attracted to Mrs. Hughey's 
article in the Etude, "Do I Teach My Pupils or Do They Teach Me?" for 
wliich she received the first prize in the contest for the best paper on 
practical teaching. This contribution won for the author many profes- 
sional and other friends. 

Another article on Church Music, in which the writer unmercifully 
held up to view the possible disturbances caused by organs run by elec- 
tricity, together with the sins and failings of the organist, choir singers, 
and music committees, aroused a lively interest and many comments — but 
through carelessness on the part of the printer the author's name was 



104 ROTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I S 

omitted and the editor of the organ department of the "Etude" had the 
unexpected pleasure of suffering for, as well as enjojing, the criticisms 
unfavorable and favorable. 

Mrs. Hughey is at present chairman of the Sacred Music Committee of 
the National Federation of Music Clubs, and edits the column "Mothers, 
Babes and Music," in the "Musical Monitor" — the official organ of this 
great national organization. 

Gradually through her lectures and writings she has been recognized 
as a little ahead of her time, and the fact that her methods are generally 
adopted prove the practical value of her ideas. 

Mrs. Hughey is at work on a new plan of correspondence lessons in 
conjunction with a national educator, and it is a matter of interesting con- 
jecture as to what new development she may bring forth in the future. 

As a lecturer she is absolutely fearless, being perfectly at home on any 
platform, and expressing herself before the largest audiences with the 
greatest ease and fluency. She is wholly devoted to her profession, and the 
success of her efforts in musical and literary lines has been a source of 
commendation and approval to the music lovers of St. Louis. 

Mrs. Hughey is a member of "The Society of Colonial Daughters of 
the XVII Century," "The Society of the Daughters of the Founders and 
Patriots of America" and "The Daughters of the American Revolution." 
She is now conducting a model school for children from two to seven 
years of age, and normal training classes for mothers and teachers at 
the Milliken Conservatory of Music, Decatur, 111. Along with the musical 
training goes instruction in number work, nature work, bodily exercise, 
and for the more advanced pupils languages are taught. The training 
school is for those who wish to learn the Hughey system, either for 
teaching or for home instruction. 




MISS FANNIE HURST 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 105 



MISS FANNIE HURST 

FANNIE HURST — the St. Louis girl who has been having such remark- 
able success in the literary field for the past three years — is a 
blooming, healthy young woman with a splendid physique. There 
is a strong personality and mental force about Miss Hurst. Charming in 
conversation and absolutely without affectation, she tells of her work and 
how she goes about it. Miss Hurst will be twenty-nine years old her 
next birthday. Both parents are of Jewish descent. Mr. Hurst is a 
successful business man, having been engaged in the wholesale leather 
business for many years. Mrs. Hurst is a clear-sighted, capable woman, 
very original in her ideas and expressions. 

Fannie Hurst has only been writing seriously for a few years. At 
first she had to contend with the opposition of her family. Being an only 
child, her parents would not consent to her leaving home. In her case she 
really must go out for material — a la Dickens — "to smudge her hands." 
This is because she is trying to make her writing largely photographic, and 
in her present work — the making of short stories — going about and getting 
in touch with the phases of life of which she writes is the most immediate 
means and naturalh' the best. 

Miss Hurst believes that the success of fiction depends primarily upon 
truth and sympathy, paradoxical as that may seem. What she means by 
that is to know the people of whom she writes, and, therefore, if she wants 
a story of a saleswoman, for instance, the best way to get the atmosphere 
and the understanding and the true grasp is to live among saleswomen — - 
which she has done. That is, of course, only one incident. It is her con- 
clusion that one can not stand on the side lines and write of the game 
nearly so well as by plunging into the fray one's self. Miss Hurst believes 
the new school of American fiction will bear her out in tliis, particularly 
as relates to the short story. The best writers are "living their stuff." 
There are not many successful Fieldings or Sterns today. 

At present her stories deal with metropolitan life, because there she 
finds the various strata and most diversified types. Her work is largely 
what one might call the sub-strata — where the "bone and marrow" in 
these classes is found. 

As far as her experience goes — she has apprenticed herself in a sweat 
shop, has worked in different department stores, and has done the work 
of a waitress in the cheaper class of lunch rooms. While not aware of the 
impressions at the time, undoubtedly the scope of such experience has 
shown in her writings, and editors have urged her to continue "first-hand 



106 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ii T. L U I S 

stuff," as they put it. She writes of these people, not from any fore-plan, 
but simply because her sympathy is with them, and naturally her keener 
understanding lies there. 

Miss Hurst says her work is largely perspiration, and that inspira- 
tion is a secondary consideration, especially since there has come to be 
some demand for it. Writing along routine lines — usually five or six 
hours each day — she works verj- slowly. It is nothing for her to write and 
rewrite a story five, six and seven times. Even then, after the manuscript 
is well on its way, she has recalled it for the eighth and ninth draft. 

"My particular phrase," she explains, "I don't know whether it means 
much to anyone else or not, is to strive to be photographic because I am 
largely impersonal in my attacks. For instance, I maj' receive an impres- 
sion and I reproduce that impression in the dark room of my mind and 
later in my stories, and that is what I mean by truthfulness and sincerity 
in my fiction." 

In fact, Miss Hurst has reached the stage where the dry plate of her 
mind is continually exposed, and in a way she is never far removed from 
her work. Usually she carries a small note book and jots down stray or 
chance observations, a street-car conversation, or a street scene, and very 
frequently will loiter about a counter in a department store, making a 
small purchase as an excuse to pick up new ideas. 

Before beginning a story she has the plan or plot worked out or out- 
lined even as to details. Then she makes a first draft, and in this the char- 
acters usually limp pretty badly and are roughly hewn. It is in the last 
and final editions they begin to take on a flesh tint and move and act like 
other mannikins. 

After a story is completed she will lie fallow for about a week. 
There may be a chstinct tjqje in her mind clamoring to be born, and she 
will adjust the tj'pe to different environments and see in what society 
"it" is most at home. Then she begins to hew and trim. In between stories 
she rests, taking up her work again with a fresh point of view. And it 
is this so-called fresh point of view that has been her greatest asset with 
editors up to now. As a class. Miss Hurst says, editors are startlingly alike 
in their judgment of a story, and as a class, also, seem to have their finger 
on the pulse of the public desire. It means that editors are fairly true in 
their judgment of style and their criticism of writing in general. 

As far as the field goes, it is positively amazing the number of people 
who are writing. In a way. Miss Hurst believes the literary field is the 
easiest, and at the same time the most difficult to conquer — easiest because 
it is the one field where actual legitimate merit wins out. Take the stage, 
for instance; there may be influence, personal atti-actions and various 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 107 



reasons apart from the actual ability which will help towards success. 
The same applies to the dilferent professions. In writing there is one 
direct road, and that is to produce work for which there is a demand. 

"The Joy of Living" was her first story, and was written while she was 
in college. It was a daily theme. The students were supposed to write 
it in ten minutes to show their facility. Up to this time in college she had 
been doing rather hectic work, and this particular theme was the last writ- 
ten before her graduation and her first realistic story. She sent it to Mr. 
William M. Reedy of the "Mirror," asking if he could use it, as it was the 
first she had sent to any magazine. He wrote an encouraging letter 
enclosing her first check. She is very grateful to Mr. Reedy. He urged 
her to go to New York from the beginning, and was gracious enough to 
predict that she would be successful. 

The desire had always been there, and after graduating from Wash- 
ington University she went to New York with a dual purpose, to do 
graduate work at Columbia University and to study the drama with 
Mr. William Dean, of the Belasco forces. At that time writing was 
largely incidental. 

The first year of writing in New York — in 1910 — she made the sum of 
$30 selling a story to "Smith's Magazine." After that her stories began to 
display the "homing instinct" and the long envelope was the chief factor of 
the morning mail. One thing that helped to keep up her courage at that 
time was the fact that she seldom received with her returned manuscripts 
the deadly printed rejection slip which so saps the enthusiasm of most 
young writers. Instead, it was accompanied by a personal letter explaining 
why the story was imavailable and expressing the belief that if she 
submitted the manuscript again it might be used because of the promise 
of the work. 

As it is now she is being paid surprisingly well; in fact, beyond her 
wildest dreams, receiving six and seven times as much from her individual 
stories as she had expected, and is beginning to realize that the reward for 
one's work is a pretty faithful gauge of its merits. 

Miss Hurst has not much patience with the peeved dreamer in the 
field who says the world is maliciously overlooking his genius. The public 
is after all a pretty faithful censor. 

In the way of dramatic writings she has composed only playlets, 
three of which have been produced, two on the larger circuits, but it has 
never meant as much to her as fiction. This may be because she has nevec 
attempted expression in a full-sized play where she would naturally meet 
with more gratifying conditions. In July of last year Mr. Brady requested 



108 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I 8 

her to write a play for his wife — Grace George — along the lines of "A 
Woman's Way," but up to now she has no plan for attempting tliis because 
of the pressure of other assignments. Later, Miss Hurst intends to travel, 
but right now when the demand is pretty keen it seems to her to be the 
psychological moment to remain on the ground, because the excitement 
and the nervous tension of going about would proliibit the concentration 
and almost menial forethought which her work demands. 

In planning a story she carefully cajoles, pampers and courts her ideas, 
going into a quiet room with the express intention of battling with the 
muses. 

Her plan is to begin work every morning about nine o'clock, and it is 
childish the way she evades getting down to it. She does not work 
with facility and the slightest excuse to postpone dictation is welcomed. 
It is almost comical — in writing as soon as she catches the idea she will 
leave her desk for about five minutes and walk around the room as if the 
idea were chasing her. Then she sits down, picks up the thread and plans 
it out. After the completion of a storj', when she feels that she has 
done her best she is nervously and physically enervated. For a time she 
relaxes and allows her mind to rest. 

She never writes at night, believing that the fag end of the day is not 
conducive to the best work. 

The letters she receives are most amusing and principally gratif jing. 
People write asking her as to the ultimate fate of a character she might 
have left to their imagination in the story, or again they ask her to write 
along certain lines and enclose a plot. One man from Brazil wrote to her 
recently saying that he would sell her five plots at $10 apiece which would 
bring her a fortune. 

In August, 1912, her story for the "Saturday Evening Post" dealt with 
Jewish life and was a purely impersonal photograph, but the result was a 
deluge of letters from rabbis and the clergy, some few coldly critical, but 
for the most part, and principally from the rabbis and their brethren, 
highly gratifying. 

In another story Miss Hurst depicts in a very lifelike manner the per- 
sonality of a girl at the glove counter. One young woman in this position 
in a store where a monthly pamphlet is issued, took umbrage at the poor 
grammar she put in the mouth of the saleslady, stating why she felt that the 
author had been unfair; that as a class they are highly grammatical, which 
Miss Hurst is not inclined to argue. The amusing phase was that her 
criticism was couched in abominable grammar. 

About getting a foothold in New York, Fannie Hurst says "it is a 
rather terrific proposition." Competition is so keen — so intensely keen — 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 109 

and one is surrounded on all sides by people who can do tlie work in similar 
lines as well and probably better. Editorial sanctums are surrounded by 
a phalanx of office boys more fearful to encounter than the editor within 
his lair. However, on the whole, the young person, the aspirant, receives 
the most gracious encouragement from the busiest men. In fact, it is 
the busiest men who seem to have the most time. On every side in her 
work she has received the most courteous consideration from the "big" 
men in the profession. Even before her name was known in the offices, 
she was given a chance to show what she could do. 

Looking at it from a financial point of view, writing is like anything 
else. The rewards are large, mediocre or small, according to the particular 
case. In fact, it is borne out that the financial remuneration is exceedingly 
generous, and the old idea of the threadbare writer in a plaster-off-the- 
wall attic is losing credence. The writer of today has as promising a 
financial future as a correspondingly able business man. There is no 
doubt that good living — meaning sane living and esthetic surroundings- 
is, in most cases, conducive to good work. 

When Miss Hurst began to sell it was a pretty uncertain proposition. 
In the first few months she made the mistake of writing exclusively for 
one publication because she knew they would buy. Then she began to 
branch a bit and for a while with no success. Manuscripts, almost without 
exception, were rejected. Suddenly she seemed to reach the end of her 
apprenticeship — one day one story sold "big." That was in 1912 — she 
has sold absolutely everything she has written with requests for more and 
assignments as far ahead as 1918. 

Miss Hurst will not sell a story for less than $1,000. Her average has 
been between $700 and $800. She believes the present is the time to enjoy 
the heydey of her success — the future and the public are uncertain. One 
of the most delectable fruits of her successful writing is the fact that the 
monetary gain will enable her to travel, see and meet those who will 
enlarge her experience and understanding of life and the world. 

Miss Hurst attended the public schools in this city before entering 
Washington University, where she graduated. In the Columbia University 
in New York she did graduate work in literature. This has been of the 
greatest assistance to her. While in Washington University she was on 
the college paper three out of four years, took leading parts in dramatics 
and sports, and was universally considered one of their most talented 
students. The greater part of her time is spent in New York, where she 
is in touch with the editorial and publishing world. 



110 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L0VI8 



M 



MRS. EMILY GRANT HUTCHINGS 

■RS. EMILY GRANT HUTCHINGS has gained a wide reputation 
because of her meritorious work for newspapers and magazines. 
She is a regular feature writer for the magazine section of the Sun- 
day "Globe-Democrat," having filled this position for twelve years. Usually 
her articles are signed only with the initials "E. G. H." She was the "Mys- 
terious Woman About Town," jjublished in that paper for four years. 
There was considerable speculation as to the identity of the writer, but this 
was not disclosed until after the articles were discontinued. Following 
this she wrote the "Saturday Dinner Sketches," using the name of "Frank 
Harwin." 

Poetry and fiction have been contributed by Mrs. Hutchings to very 
many magazines — "Current Literature," Cosmopolitan," "Country Life," 
"Current Magazine," "The Open Court," "Philistine," "Atlantic Monthly," 
and others. She wrote one novel that was published in the "Sunday 
Associated Magazine of Chicago," entitled "Chriskios — Divine Healer." 
For two years she wrote "Art and Home Decorations for Beautiful 
Homes." This was a monthly magazine pubhshed in St. Louis. 

Ten chapters of the "Woman's Atheneum" are her contribution to a 
work in ten volumes, which is being edited by Vincent S. Byars of St. Louis, 
and which covers every phase of woman's activity. These ten chapters 
include such themes as Art in Dress; Art in Home Decorations; The His- 
tory and Study of Art; Women as Writers; The Teaching Profession for 
Women; The Ethics of Handiwork for Women, etc. 

During the World's Fair in St. Louis in 1904, Mrs. Hutchings was on 
the staff of the General Press Bureau, writing a story a day for twenty- 
four weeks, which were printed all over the world. In their preparation 
she interviewed practically every oflficial and head of the departments con- 
nected with the fair. She wrote all kinds of stories, from "The Process of 
Making Liquid Air" to "Why the Igorottes Refused to Wear Clothes." 

Before the opening of the Fair her name was suggested to the press 
bureau as a valuable acquisition to the staff which was composed almost 
wholly of people who lived out of St. Louis. Walter Stevens requested 
that she interview Halsey C. Ives, the director of the Fine Arts Department, 
and prepare a sketch of this department that could be used in the adver- 
tisements of the Fair. Mr. Stevens felt that Mrs. Hutchings could do this 
because she had held the position of librarian and lecturer at the St. Louis 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. EMILY GRANT HUTCHINGS 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 111 

School of Fine Arts and knew Professor Ives very well, having been 
associated with him in this connection. 

This aiticle pleased the press bureau so well that she was selected to 
write occasional stories, and the first one was "Foreign Mothers and Babies 
at the World's Fair," with photographs by Jessie Tarbox Beals. These 
were a set of wonderful pictures and the story was written to accompany 
them. This was sent out to the press syndicate of newspapers in the 
United States and was published practically by all the papers in the syndi- 
cate. Its success led to her appointment on the staff of the General Press 
Bureau, and she was the last member to be dropped at the close of the fair. 
After this she prepared the volume entitled "The Art Department Illus- 
trated," describing the pictures and writing sketches of the painters. 

Mrs. Hutchings has also done much work for "The Mirror" along the 
line of art criticisms, municipal improvement work, etc. It is interesting 
to know that she made inspections in the Industrial School, publishing 
the facts in that paper which four years later were proven by municipal 
investigation to be absolutely correct, and the city officials who scored 
her actions at the time were the first to make apologies when they found 
her reports to have been verified. 

For two j'ears she was on the editorial staff of the "Valley Magazine," 
taking the Children's and Domestic Science departments. She prepared 
about one-half of the first issue of "Myerson's American Family Magazine," 
using seven pen names, and was on the staff for one year. 

It is necessary for Mrs. Hutchings to be absolutely alone in order to 
do satisfactory writing; the presence of another in the house is disturbing. 
She does her best work between nine and twelve in the forenoon, and 
says writing at night is an utter impossibility. 

When she gets tired or the sentences do not flow smoothly, she leaves 
the typewriter, going into the kitchen to make a salad or a mayonnaise 
dressing, which has oiled the cogs for many a story that was slow in the 
making. 

Incidentally Mrs. Hutchings is an excellent cook. She does her own 
housework, marketing, etc., preferring the occupation of a housewife to 
the easier, but less private life of a hotel. 

Many of her articles require a great deal of foraging for material, but 
she is so persistent that the word "fail" has no place in her vocabulary. 
Frequently in the search of material for one story she runs across another. 
An idea will lie dormant in her mind as long as two years, sometimes even 
longer — when suddenly without warning it will present itself fullfledged 
to be written, and then dropping whatever she may be doing, puts it down 
just as it conies to her, rarely making any changes. With few alterations 



112 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

her work is sent to the publishers just as first ^^Titten, attributing this to 
the fact that all of lier good work is the result of subconscious cerebration. 
She has seen among lier clippings articles tliat she would not believe were 
her own had she not found her initials at the end. These stories would 
sometimes require a vast amount of research, but could be dismissed from 
the memory as quicklj^ as acquired, and again others have impressed 
themselves on her mind so vividlj' that she could repeat them almost ver- 
batim. Her memory is unusual, and her mind a storehouse of informa- 
tion. It is, in fact, remarkable — wholly isolated items of information that 
have been picked up in the course of years, coming up at the time most 
needed. 

For her sketches, a paragraph in the newspaper, a chance conversa- 
tion with an acquaintance, an accidental happening while on a street car, 
or anytliing that looks like a plot for a story, is jotted down in a note-book 
with just enough words to suggest the idea and keep it in her memory. 
And these notes in the book she might look at forty-nine times and they 
would mean nothing — but the iiftieth time would suggest the whole story 
ready to be written out. 

The manner in which she obtained the material for "The Exile," one 
of her stories, is fairly typical of her method of work. One morning while 
engaged in the altogether uninteresting task of washing dishes, her mind 
was arrested bj' the sudden call of "rags, bottles, and old iron," in the alley 
behind the house. Immediately she stopped her work, going into the 
dining room where she took a pad and pencil and wrote as fast as she 
could — finished the story and went back to the breakfast dishes, having no 
definite impression of just how she had arranged the details. 

The rag-picker's call in the alley had suggested the life of an old 
Hebrew woman who, in her youth, had gathered rags to support her chil- 
dren. In her old age, and in the home of her wealthy son, she, too, heard 
the call of the rag-picker in the alley — the call that was the connecting 
link between her active, happy youth, and the rich desolation of her old 
age. Trusting to the good nature of the servant she ventured out to the 
cart only to discover that her friends were dying of pestilence in the little 
Jerusalem section of the city. 

In a revulsion of feeling the old woman went back to her room, tore 
off the beautiful clothes her son had provided, clad herself in the treasured 
garments of her young womanhood and went back to her own people. 
After three days her son discovered her in time to receive her dying mes- 
sage that "the Babylon of his love was still for him. but for her the years 
of captivity were ended." 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 113 

Mrs. Emily Grant Hutchings is the daughter of Carl H. Schmidt, who 
was born in Altcnburg, Germany, and came to America in 1849. He was 
a minister in St. Louis in the old Methodist Church on Wash Street. While 
there he planned to go as a missionary to Japan. His wife studied medi- 
cine in the Missouri Medical College in order that she might accompany 
him and have access to the homes of the natives. Mi's. Schmidt was a 
pioneer woman physician in the Mississippi Valle3\ As her husband was 
transferred from year to year by the conference she would practice med- 
icine where the}' were stationed. On account of ill-health Mr. Schmidt 
was obhged to give up his missionary plans and during the Civil War 
entered the offices of the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railway Company in Han- 
nibal, occupying the position of department secretary until his death in 
1884, and Mrs. Schmidt continued to practice medicine until 1904, when 
she retired, living with her son until her death in 1909 at the age of 
seventy-nine years. 

Mrs. Hutchings is the youngest of a family of six children — four boys 
and two girls. Her sister, Mrs. F. W. Arnold, of St. Louis, was for several 
years the superintendent of the Goldstein Hospital for Surgery of the Head. 
She took her training at the Baptist Sanitarium and read medicine with 
her brother in Hannibal, Dr. Richard Schmidt. 

Emily Schmidt attended the public schools in Hannibal, where she 
was born, graduating from the High School at seventeen, and going from 
there to Germany to a famous school for girls in Altenburg, the birth- 
place of her father, the Karolinum Hohere Tochtere Schule, where she 
remained for one year. On coming back to America she entered the 
State University at Columbia, taking a course in letters. 

For two years she taught Latin and Greek, also German, in the High 
School of Hannibal, and then came to St. Louis, taking a position as a fea- 
ture writer on the "St. Louis Republic" from August, 1896, until Febru- 
arj', 1897, when she married Charles Edwin Hutchings, secretary of the 
Board of Commissioners of Tower Grove Park. While on a journey 
from St. Louis to Memphis gathering material for an article for "Munsey's 
Magazine" she met Mr. Hutchings. Because she had a story in the June 
number of "McCIure's" of that year on "Mark Twain," he first became 
interested in her, and before their return to St. Louis, discovered that 
they had other tastes in common besides "Mark Twain." 

Mr. Hutchings was born in Clarinda, Iowa. As a newspaper man he 
has had a wide experience. For many years he was associated with Dr. 
Trelease, of Shaw's Garden. All of the photographs his wife uses in her 
newspaper work are made by Mr. Hutchings, who is an expert photog- 
rapher. They are a very devoted and congenial couple — their work 



114 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I 8 

running along the same lines to a great extent. The home of the Hutch- 
ings — while it has none of the Bohemian element — is a center for a 
delightful circle of artistic and literary people. 

Mrs. Hutchings is often asked for advice by people who want to 
write, and her inevitable answer is, "Don't!" If it be the thing to do, no 
amount of discouraging will dissuade those so inclined from it, but it 
takes a stout heart to stand the disappointments and hardships that this 
work entails. 

From her varied experiences Mrs. Hutchings is a very interesting 
woman; she possesses the rare tact of being a good listener, as well as 
entertaining in conversation. She has a lovable disposition and is a 
woman whom all other women admire. 




MRS. F. H. INGALLS 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 115 



MRS. F. H. INGALLS 

MRS. FRED H. INGALLS is the president of the Women's Christian 
Temperance Union in St. Louis, and superintendent of the depart- 
ment of anti-narcotics of the National W. C. T. U. For twenty- 
four years she has held the former office. Before Mrs. Ingalls took up 
the moral reform work, in which she is an exceedingly active worker in 
connection with the W. C. T. U., she had considerable experience. 

As Miss Eliza Buckley she was the first secretary of the Temperance 
Union, organized by Miss Willard in St. Louis in 1879. The Missouri 
State Union was not founded until three years later, in 1882. Mrs. Ingalls 
is the only surviving member of that first union in St. Louis today. At 
the time of organization the members met in the old Methodist Church 
located at tlie corner of Eleventh and Locust Streets. It is interesting 
to know what was done at tlie early meetings as compared to tlie active 
and effective methods adopted since. Not knowing just how to begin 
the work, they would shut themselves up in a little corner back of the 
Sunday-school room and read and pray for guidance. Tlieir object was 
to bring about moral reforms, and to discuss and study the best plans 
for carrying out their purposes. 

For eleven years Mrs. Ingalls was vice-president-at-large of the Mis- 
souri State Union, and superintendent of its legislative work. Through 
her untiring efforts the anti-cigarette bill was passed, and she was also 
instrumental in ha\dng petitions sent to the Legislature against the white 
slave traffic and cliild labor. 

For the National and World's W. C. T. U. exhibit in the Louisiana 
Purchase Exposition held in St. Louis in 1904, she was appointed local 
commissioner. Also served several years on the State Board of Charities 
in Missouri by appointment of the Governor. 

Much of her time has been devoted to scientific temperance educa- 
tion — which means the explanation of the evil effects of alcohol and 
narcotics on the human system. 

While temperance work has been the most important, she has taken 
a deep interest in all reforms for the benefit of humanity, being the 
author of a number of books and pamphlets bearing on narcotic and 
intemperance evils and making numerous addresses and lectures on these 
subjects at home and in foreign countries. Persistency and determination 
mark her connection with any cause she represents. 



116 :S T AB L E WOMEN OF S T. L V I S 

The benefits derived from the work of the W. C. T. U. are beyond 
computation. Thousands of dissipated men have been saved from degrada- 
tion and ruin, hitemperance is contributor}' to more wretchedness and 
crime than any other vice of man. This organization has effected unhmited 
good for the welfare and happiness of home hfe. 

There lias been a revolution in the liquor traffic in the last twenty-five 
years — drunkenness has decreased, and the regulation of the sale of 
intoxicants restricted. 

The spread of the sentiment of prohibition — the law of high licensing 
as existing now — and the prevention of the sale of intoxicating liquors 
on Sundays, have all been brought about by the unremitting efforts of 
the women of this union. 

The system of the organization of the W. C. T. U. is so perfect and 
the members have been so courageous that they have rarely failed in 
effecting reformations undertaken. 

These women have shown the zeal of the Crusaders in working against 
wealth and the power of political influence. 

The prohibition of the sale of liquor existed in the statutes for years, 
but the subserviency of politicians truckling to the liquor interests deferred 
their enforcement. The reform sentiment, stimulated to the highest 
degree by the W. C. T. U., has brought officials to a realization of their 
duties and compelled the enforcement of the enacted laws. They have 
urged them to perform their duty, and their persistent demands caused 
them to do so. 

Women naturaUy stand for what is pure and good. In most cases 
they alone must bear the brunt of the eft'ects of intemperance. 

The work of tlae national organization is divided into departments, 
and each department has a specialist. Mrs. Ingalls' specialty is the 
anti-cigarette work. She has a superintendent at the head of every 
State organization in the Union, and these form a band of workers for 
co-operation. Each State elects its superintendent at the annual conven- 
tion, and the local unions appoint their own. Mrs. Ingalls sends her 
plans for work to the heads of the State unions, and they in turn reach 
all the others down to the smallest. 

Through the zeal and activity of the members, the union has accom- 
plished much in this direction. The passage of anti-cigarette laws has 
been secured in every State. In a number of States the law forbids their 
sale, manufacture or importation. Other States have laws varying in 
their methods of controlling the sale. 

One of the leading physicians of the city asked Mrs. Ingalls one 
day how she managed to accomplish so much work, whether she employed 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I 8 117 

a secretary or an assistant? "Sometimes I do," she replied. "I write 
my addresses and articles for publication. I do not know shorthand, so 
I must write them out." To this he said: "Oh, that is nonsense, you 
should do as I do. Take a nice, big easy chair, a good cigar, and let 
a stenographer do the work. That will not make j'ou half so tired." 
Mrs. Ingalls urbanely asked, "And what particular brand of cigar would 
you recommend?" He laughingly apologized by saying, "I declare, I 
forgot your work is principally in the anti-narcotic field." 

The temperance workers are constantlj' holding meetings for the 
purpose of influencing people against the use of narcotics, and one of 
the methods is to reach them through the Sunday schools. 

There are four temperance Sundays in the year in Sunday-school 
work. The second one is designated as anti-cigarette Sunday. On that 
day they try to reach every Sunday school in the United States. On 
the Saturday before a mass meeting of the children is held in the schools, 
and on Sunday the pastor is requested to preach a sermon on the evil 
effects of this habit and the Sunday-school teacher to lecture on the 
same subject. 

Among the publications which Mrs. Ingalls has distributed through 
her bands, is a cartoon book picturing the child from the time he uses 
the first cigarette until his downfall when he becomes a tramp. Accom- 
panying this are testimonials from educators, physicians and business 
men as to the detrimental effects of the habit on the system. Mrs. Ingalls 
is getting out another leaflet which shows "The doors open and closed 
to cigarette users." This is described entirely from a business point 
of view, giving the names of many firms who refuse to give employment 
to the cigarette-smoking boy. All statements made in tliis regard are 
carefully investigated by the temperance workers, and statistics prove 
the facts to be absolutely true. 

As to tlie physical effects of smoking, the cigarette causes a dryness 
of the mucous membrane of the throat and mouth, and an irritation 
follows which calls for something to ease that condition. Since water 
will not give relief it is natural to drink alcoholic liquors. 

The deception practiced by the boy when he begins to smoke is 
bad, and that undermines liis moral nature. A cigarette smoker is almost 
always ranked in a lower grade in school than the boy who is free from 
this habit. Some of the best colleges in the country are now refusing 
them admittance because they wish to maintain a high standard of 
scholarship. 

That the cigarette-smoking habit is fastening its tentacles on the 
young women of the nation is the opinion of Mrs. Ingalls, and in her 



118 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 

recent address at the Portland conference of the W. C. T. U., she made 
an impassioned plea for more activity in the work of her department 
against this new danger. It is not uncommon for the young women 
of the "smart set" to pass cigarettes after luncheon, and the girl who 
does not smoke is ridiculed or influenced into doing so against her better 
judgment. Mrs. Ingalls urges that fathers give up smoking to set a good 
example to their sons, and, sometimes, daughters. 

An innovation in reform lecture work will begin with Mrs. Ingalls' 
addresses in out-of-town picture shows, illustrating the evil effects of 
narcotics and alcohol on mind and body. 

Another branch of work in this connection which she has been doing 
for three years is the giving of prizes of $50.00 in gold for the best 
essay on "How to Teach the Bad Effects of Narcotics on the Human 
System." This has created quite a wide interest and brought her many 
good compositions. These must have passed the examination in the 
State Union, receiving a State prize, and then go to her in competition 
for the National prize. This is done to secure additional data for the 
proper instruction against the use of these dangerous stimulants. 

Mrs. Ingalls and several hundred other women are supporting a 
crusade for the protection of young girls who attend public dancing 
halls. They have urged the Municipal Assembly to pass a law empower- 
ing certain women to supervise places of public amusement. So far 
tliis has been refused on the grounds that it comes under the head of 
police supervision, although it was shown that such authorities had failed 
to give them sufficient protection. 

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, pioneer workers for 
suffrage, were among Mrs. Ingalls' friends. In equal rights for women 
she was always interested, and Virginia Minor, who did such heroic 
work in early days, relied on her to a very great extent as an assistant. 
Suffrage then was not regarded in the favorable light with which it is 
at present; in the last few years more progress has been made than at 
any time previous. 

The older brother of Mrs. Ingalls, who died in February, 1908, was 
always her favorite, and when she was a little girl and wanted information 
on any subject she applied to him, and he never failed her but on one 
occasion when she wanted to know why her mother was left beliind 
when the men of the family drove into the town to vote. Her father 
and the boys were dressed in their Sunday clothes — they were going 
to vote — it was election day. Great excitement prevailed and she was 
permitted to go to town with them in the old barouche, but her mother 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 119 

could not go. When she asked her brother "Why doesn't mother come 
with us?" he said, "Mother can not vote — mother must stay at home." 

"But whj' can't she vote?" Eliza persisted. 

"Because she is a woman," he answered, hoping she would be pacified. 
Then she wanted to know what they did when they voted that mother 
couldn't do the same as father — was it dangerous? But she got no satis- 
factory answer then, and says she never has on that subject from any 
other man to this day. 

Miss Eliza Buckley was married to Fred H. Ingalls in 1880. Their 
home life was ideal. Her husband was in sympathy with all the reform 
movements in which she was interested, and was her greatest helper. He 
died in February, 1905. 

The parents of Mrs. Ingalls were cultured and public-spirited. Her 
mother, Jane Boyle, came from Baltimore. She was a noble character — 
much atlmired for her fine judgment and charitable work. Her father, 
Robert Buckley, was an Englishman. Their early married life was spent 
in Pennsylvania, from which State they came West. Eliza Buckley was 
born on a farm called "Cherry Hill," ten miles south of St. Louis. She 
attended the public schools in the country until old enough to enter a 
college in Philadelphia — from which she graduated. 

With such women as Lady Henry Somerset of England, Clara Hoff- 
man of this State, and Frances Willard, as well as all of the prominent 
leaders in the temperance cause, Mrs. Ingalls' association in the National 
and State work has been very pleasant. 

Lady Henry Somerset, on her last visit to St. Louis to study labor 
conditions in tliis country, was entertained bj^ Mrs. Ingalls. When the 
world's convention of the W. C. T. U. was held in London, Lady Somerset 
was hostess to the American delegation at her home in Rye Gate. One of 
Mrs. Ingalls' recollections of that journey, outside of her temperance 
interest, was the English custom of serving five o'clock tea, which she 
found utterly wretched and not at all to her taste. 

There are very strong organizations of the W. C. T. U. in all civilized 
countries. Mrs. Ingalls has visited most of the principal unions abroad 
and made addresses at their meetings — in Glasgow she spoke in one 
of the churches, and lectured in Albert Hall, London. In the United 
States she has traveled extensively in the interest of the W. C. T. U. 

Art galleries have been of great interest to her because she is an 
artist herself. Her home is beautifully adorned with her oil paintings 
on canvas, velvet and china. She is gifted with a highly developed 
artistic sense, and many of her pictures have been exhibited, bringing 



120 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I S 

much favorable comment. As one of the members of the Twentieth 
Century Art Club, she has made a special study of art. This is her 
favorite form of recreation. The Wednesday Club also includes her name 
in its list of members. 

Like inost strong characters, Mrs. Ingalls is outspoken, energetic and 
determined. Her radical ideas regarding tobacco and liquor do not 
prevent friendliness and tolerance toward those who do not agree with her. 

When Mrs. Ingalls was introduced by Miss WUlard at the national 
W. C. T. U. convention in St. Louis, some j'ears ago, the president of 
the Minnesota Union said she expected to see a tall, thin, sallow woman 
in a plain dress; but instead a fair, well rounded figure, elegantly gowned 
in pink silk, real lace and appropriate jewels came forward and demanded 
their attention for her physical as well as mental qualities, and this she 
has retained ever since in dress, in speech, and in that fine courtesy which 
gives such grace to life and to which no one is insensible. 




STRAUSS PHOTO 



MRS. MARIA I. JOHNSTON 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 121 



MRS. MARIA I. JOHNSTON 

MRS. MARIA I. JOHNSTON, lecturer of ancient and modern history, 
leader of the "Chart Club" for twentj'-five years, author of books, 
chaperone of travel classes, contributor to magazines of poetry 
and short stories, has lived through some of the most interesting periods 
of the history of this country. 

Fredericksburg, Va., was her birthplace. Richard Barnett — of a well- 
known family — was her father, and her mother, Julia Miller Johnston, 
was related to Gens. Joseph E. and Sidney Johnston, and also to Gen. 
Wade Hampton. In infancy Mrs. Johnston was brought by her parents 
to Vicksburg, Miss. The journey was made in a carriage and wagons 
through the States of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. With them were 
some family negroes. Many weeks were consumed in making the trip, 
and details incident to it were often talked of around the fireside in 
after years. 

Richard Barnett became prominent in his immediate section — was 
early elected to office and was on the Circuit Court bench during the 
greater part of his life. 

Mrs. Johnston's recollection of public men dates very far back. One 
was Henry Clay, who came to Vicksburg during his presidential campaign 
against James K. Polk in 1844, being the guest of S. S. Prentice, then 
one of the first orators in the country. 

One day Judge Barnett told his family he had been down to the 
river to see a great celebrity. This was Marshal Bertrand, who had 
been with the Emperor Napoleon for many years, had followed liis 
fortunes during the Russian campaign, been mayor of the palace after 
Duroc, and remaining with the exile had been present at the closing scene 
on the Island of St. Helena. With the Marshal was his son, named for 
the Emperor. In this connection, Mrs. Johnston says her father, who 
was well-posted on the subject, impressed upon them all some facts 
that, after she could read, were the foundation of what can be called a 
life-long study of Napoleonic literature. 

As late as 1841 there were no railroads in Mississippi except one 
of forty miles from Vicksburg to Jackson. The river was teeming with 
steamboats, and all news — public and private — came by water. The 
streets of Vicksburg were not paved and in winter were almost impassable. 
In a spell of bad weather it was bruited through the town that Col. Richard 
M. Johnson, of Kentuckj', who had been vice-president while Martin 



122 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 

Van Buren was chief executive, was on board of a steamboat at a lower 
landing. After heroic efforts he was put in a buggy and pulled by a 
relay of mules to the court house, where he made a speech. The Barnett 
children were informed that he was a noted soldier and had carried 
fire and sword among the Indians. On the green a chorus of lads sang — 

"Shout and cry old Rumsidumsy — 
Colonel Johnson killed Tecumsey." 

They were much impressed by the pageantry. 

Mississippi was thoroughly enthusiastic over the Mexican War, and 
the first to enlist was Jefferson Davis, who lived twenty miles from Vicks- 
burg on his brother Joseph's plantation, called "The Hurricane." He 
had been in the United States Army for several years, but when he lost 
his young wife, a daughter of Gen. Zachary Taylor, returned to his 
country home, where he spent some time in strict retirement. Maria 
Barnett's first recollection of Mr. Davis was when he came back from 
Mexico. She was one of some children who strewed roses before the 
rostrum from which he addressed the citizens. He had been wounded 
and used crutches. With him was the famous duelist, Col. Alexander 
McClung, also bearing honorable scars. Soon after this the young widower 
was consoled by Miss Verina Howell, of New Orleans. Under her influence 
Mr. Davis resumed his place in social and public life. The largess of 
the returned soldiers extended so far that it reached the little Maria in 
the shape of a Mexican blanket and a hairless dog. Some fine specimens 
of cacti were brought to her mother, but did not thrive. 

Conversation at her father's table during this time was mostly of 
the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo and the Wilmot proviso. The old-line 
Whigs who had opposed the admission of Texas and Oregon as States, 
were full of apprehension at the policy of expansion. 

Gen. Quitman had come to the front and was the drawing card at 
a ladies' fair one evening. Maria Barnett and her schoolmate, Susan 
Coleman, were taught some verses to repeat in lois honor. One crowned 
him with laurel, and the other presented a bouquet. The General seemed 
to feel very foolish over the matter, and did not look at all dignified 
enwreathed and ornamented. The next step in public life for Maria 
Barnett was meeting with Gen. Zachary Taylor on his way to Washington 
City to be inaugurated as President in the spring of 1849, at which time 
he smoothed down her hair and said she was "a nice little girl." Over 
this she remembers to have felt very important. Father Mathew — the 
Irish apostle of temperance — came soon after, giving a benediction to 
all children. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I 8 123 

Educational advantages for girls at that time were very limited; 
private teaching by a governess was given the preference. It was not 
considered proper for the daughter of a gentleman to attend the "free" 
schools. 

Maria Barnett was for several years a pupil of the Female Academy 
kept by Mr. and Mrs. W. S. Young, and there formed the sweet girl 
friendships so fondly remembered in after years. For a limited time she 
had instruction from the afterwards famous Dr. J. G. Holland. This 
was before he gave his beautiful poems "Kathrina" and "Bitter-Sweet" 
to the world. 

From the time she was five years old Maria Barnett came in contact 
for many years with duels and duelists. This barbarous usage prevailed 
in Mississippi, even after the Civil War. To escape the law the combatants 
would cross to Madison Parish, La. — just opposite Vicksburg — and Vicks- 
burgers, spyglasses in hand, assembled in different parts of the town to 
watch the proceedings. One day Maria came upon the body of a man 
named Menaphee, being carried in the street, who had been shot in the 
manner described, and can remember hours of suspense and sorrow while 
her own connections would be — as it was called — "on the ground." No 
real justification can be offered for dueling, yet it was better than the 
bloody encounters which sometimes took place in the streets of Vicks- 
burg. Among them were the killing of three men at different times who 
each in turn edited "The Democratic Sentinel." Monuments — the same 
shape and size — may be seen in the cemetery with inscriptions which say 
they were "martjTS to their principles." 

Public opinion then was rather for, than against, duelling. Maria 
Barnett — when seventeen years of age — coming into possession of the 
fact that certain men were making preparations to fight a duel, went 
to Mayor Bryson and offered to make an affidavit as would warrant their 
arrest. He replied that such proceedings would make him most unpopular 
and ruin his prospects for re-election, and believed that as they were full 
of interest for the fight nothing would settle it better than pistols. 

New Orleans was the metropolis of the southern part of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, and it was the ambition of the maids and matrons to 
pay "The City" a yearly visit. While going there one Winter, with her 
aunt, Maria Barnett found herself the campagnon du voyage of several 
well-known persons — one was the mother of John Hays Hammond; she 
was the fascinating widow, Sallie Lee, a sister of the Texas Ranger, Col. 
Jack Hays. Mrs. Lee had lived in Yazoo County, but was at this time 
en route for California — where she married Col. Hammond, then sheriff 
of San Francisco County. Maria enjoyed her conversation and company 



124 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 

and remembers handling a bracelet ornamented with the top of a walking- 
stick, captured in a Texas fight from Gen. Santa Anna. It was a huge 
ruby surrounded with diamonds, and had been presented to Mrs. Lee 
by her brother. 

Maria Barnett — as a girl — had a remarkable memory, which she 
retains to this day. Some words of praise bestowed on her when she 
was quite young, to the effect that she had a phenomenal memory and was 
a juvenile encyclopedia, started in her a feverish desire to learn. When 
her father found that she was covering bits of paper with pencil marks, 
he was troubled, and shrugging his shoulders, commented, "Let her 
alone — one can not cure a woman of the scribbling itch." 

Epidemics of yellow fever were frequent and tragic, and Maria Barnett 
passed through a most terrifying time for ten weeks in her own town. 

Men and women were proud to own slaves — whether by purchase 
or inheritance, and the inevitable fortune-hunter always knew how many 
"woolly heads" belonged to his dulcinea. 

The next exciting experience for Maria Barnett, in a social way, 
after a visit to New Orleans — where she saw Charlotte Cushman in Shakes- 
pearean role — was a journey, in charge of Capt. N. Milliken, on steamer 
"Di Vernon," which was tangled in ice at Cairo, going at snail's pace en 
route to St. Louis. She visited relatives here — Mr. and Mrs. Wade 
Heiskell — whose very handsome home was near the junction of Broadway 
and Bellefontaine Road. From this suburb the young girl contemplated 
the world on a somewhat larger scale. Mrs. Heiskell was a singular 
mixture of woi'ldliness and religion. She engaged a music master for 
her niece and took charge of her education herself. Soon after this 
Maria Barnett passed through a period of religious fanaticism. 

Even religion with a girl may be invaded by personal vanity. She 
thought it would be charming to become an Episcopal nun, and fancied 
herself looking comely in the habit that went along with the profession. 
It took much expostulation and ridicule to finally cause her to renounce 
these intentions, and to please her uncle she began to receive the atten- 
tions of young men — one of whom escorted her to hear Jenny Lind — 
the Swedish Nightingale. St. Louis was undeveloped in those daj's, and 
Barnum, after examining every one of its public halls and finding them 
inadequate, had. at his own expense, to tear down partitions between a 
number of rooms in the second story of a building on Market Street — 
Wyman's Hall — opposite the Court House. 

During her stay in St. Louis Charles L. Buck, of Vicksburg, called 
to see her on his way to New York, bringing news of her family. He 
learned of her religious aspirations, and soon after her return to Vicks- 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 125 

burg told her he would prefer, above all other things, to facilitate her 
in taking the veil, but it should be a white one before the altar with 
him. His argument prevailed and a few months after they were married. 

Mr. Buck was a promising j'oung lawj^er who had the usual struggles 
on beginning his career. For a time he and Horace Miller edited a paper 
in Vicksburg called "The True Issue." During their honeymoon, Mr. 
and Mrs. Buck were entertained at the executive mansion by Governor 
and Mrs. Foote. Mr. Buck was elected to the Legislature and served 
even after the State seceded. In October, 1858, the Mississippi Legislature 
met, and Mrs. Buck spent some time with her husband in Jackson. During 
that time John Brown, better known by his sobriquet of "Ossawatomie," 
made his famous raid into Virginia. Mrs. Buck and her children went 
to New York in the summer of 1860. The steamer Great Eastern, in 
port, and the first Japanese Embassy, were among the attractions of the 
citj\ In 1862 the Buck family went to their plantation called "Riverside," on 
Sunflower River, in consequence of Vicksburg being threatened by the 
Federal fleet. The plantation house, being occupied, they took possession 
of a cottage near Deer Creek. Tliis was the scene of much inconvenience 
and distress. The annual flood exceeded anything before known. After 
three weeks the water receded, leaving several inches of ooze filled with 
refuse matter, and as a consequence swamp fever became epidemic. 

Mr. Buck was taken ill and chances for his recovery were small. The 
cabin was partly under water, and the sick negroes, as a matter of charity, 
were also brought to the house for better attention. Everything seemed 
laid low by the disease but snakes and owls, which hissed and screeched 
on the doorstep at all hours of the day and night. Mr. Buck did not 
recover. He was only thirty-eight years old, while Mrs. Buck was thirteen 
years his junior. She had but one thought — to escape with her children. 
After the water fell they went in a wagon across the country to the home 
of her parents, who were refugees at Yazoo Citj'. During the journey 
the youngest child was ill with swamp fever, but recovered. 

The next experience of Mrs. Buck was being for more than forty 
days under fire during the "Siege of Vicksburg." They passed some 
dreadful days and nights, spending most of the time in the cellar of 
their home without undressing or feeling safe to go into the upper part 
of the house for clean clothing and necessary food. 

Soon after Lee's surrender Mrs. Buck was married to a distant cousin 
— Dr. William R. Johnston. He was a graduate of William and Mary 
College, as well as a Philadelphia medical school, and his war record 
was excellent. He had charge of a Confederate hospital at Dumfries, 
Va., for several years, and after was sent as superintendent to a drug 



126 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I S 

factory in Tyler, Tex. Later Dr. and Mrs. Johnston went to live in what 
was known at the time as the "Attakapas" and invested the ruins of a 
fortune in a sugar plantation called "Belle Grove," a considerable part 
of wliich was given over to the culture of oranges. 

It was at Dr. Johnston's suggestion that Mrs. Johnston wrote her 
first book entitled "The Siege of Vicksburg," which had a phenomenal 
sale in Mississippi and Louisiana. They moved to Missouri in 1873, locat- 
ing near Sedalia, where a farm was leased, upon which a part of the 
town now stands. 

After that Mrs. Johnston wrote a pamphlet called "Gallantry North 
and South." She has contributed in one form or another to many of the 
leading periodicals in the Mississippi Valley — the "Picayune" and "Times- 
Democrat" in New Orleans, and the "Memphis Appeal." 

Mrs. Johnston edited a department of the "Globe-Democrat" in this 
city for some time. 

While doing this work she had charge of the Woman's Exchange. 
She was editor of "The Spectator" for three years, which was published 
in St. Louis. Soon after this two other books — "Hector" and "Love's 
Young Dream" — which are in the public libraries^and a story, "Oh, 
Come to the West, Love," were published — the latter in a magazine. Mrs. 
Johnston was a correspondent for the "Woman's Home Journal," of 
Boston, while Lucy Stone Blackwell and her daughter, Alice Blackwell, 
were the editors. 

Mrs. Johnston was a lifelong friend of Susan B. Anthony; she has 
always been an ardent advocate of equal rights for women. In 1895 
she made her first visit to Europe to study art, making her longest stays 
in Florence, Rome, Paris and Dresden. After that she made four other 
trips to Europe chaperoning parties. Among other experiences she had 
an interview with the Pope, attended a reception given by the Lord Mayor 
of London, a lawn party with Lady Henry Somerset as hostess, and has 
seen most all of the crowned heads of Europe. But Mrs. Johnston is 
always able to draw deductions in favor of her own country — in domestic 
life, in the general tone of society, and not least of all in cooking — in fact, 
gives the preference to everything except works of art and historic asso- 
ciation. One of the interesting visits abroad was to Oberammergau to 
see the Passion Play in 1900, when she chaperoned a party of ladies, as 
she did on every other journey except the first. 

Twenty-five years ago Mrs. Johnston founded what is known as the 
"Chart Club" of St. Louis. The purpose of the club is to study ancient 
and modern history. It takes its name from an arrangement of sixty 
centuries very simply done on a small piece of paper. The story of the 



ROTABLE WOMEX OF ST. LOUIS 127 

world is told in coloring. During the time of the supremacy of Rome it 
is red; the middle or dark ages are blue, the golden ages of art before and 
after Christ are made yellow. They are called "Drawing Rooms" and 
take place every Saturday morning during the winter. Among the women 
to whom Mrs. Johnston is deeply appreciative of the receptions given the 
club are Mesdames Theodore Shelton, J. B. M. Kehlor, Leroy Valiant, 
Huntingdon Smith, R. Hutchinson, J. Walsh, J. Scandlan, R. Shapleigh, 
J. W. Harrison, J. W. and W. Teasdale, Wm. Pickel, B. Saylor and Mrs. 
Shaughnessy. One of the out-of-town lectures given in connection with 
her Chart Club work was in Vicksburg, for which she was handsomely 
remunerated. 

Mrs. Johnston's son. Judge Horace Buck, of Helena, Mont., was 
accidentally killed in the midst of a successful career. He was at the 
lime of his death, in 1907, a Supreme Judge of the State of Montana. 

Wliile her son was a student at Yale she composed the class song, 
which was sung for several years. 

Dr. Johnston died in 1887. No children came from this second 
marriage. The two daughters of Mr. Buck are married — one living in St. 
Louis and one in Alexandria, La. 

Mrs. Johnston's influence would be missed very keenly in St. Louis. 
Her lectures in the Chart Club have been entertaining and instructive, and 
it would be difficult indeed to find one who could pursue this method of 
teaching history in her capable and interesting style. She has a remark- 
able capacity of describing scenes and places graphically. Her books give 
true accounts of the period in which she has lived, and the style is easy and 
pleasing. Mrs. Johnston is much beloved by her associates and friends, 
and is held in the highest esteem bv her numerous admirers. 



128 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U 1 S 



MRS. FRANKLYN KNIGHT 

MRS. FRANKLYN KNIGHT, the possessor of a rich, sympathetic 
contralto voice, was twenty-two years old before it ever occurred 
to her to take lessons for vocal culture. 

It is advised by the best music masters, as a rule, to wait until a girl 
is fourteen or fifteen years old, or has fully developed, before allowing her 
to take training for her voice, although there are instances where this 
rule has not been followed, and the result has been markedly successful, 
as in the case of Johanna Gadski, beginning at eight years, Madame Homer 
when very young, and a number of other operatic stars. 

It was not because of the fear of over-developing her voice that Mrs. 
Knight did not begin; it was just because she did not know that she had a 
voice of unusual tone and range, and perhaps would not have realized it 
even then had it not been for an old "sweetheart" who called to see her 
when living with her sister in Kansas City, while acting as stenographer 
in her brother's office. This young man, who did not know she had 
a singing voice, brought with him on an evening's visit a piece of 
popular music — at least it was at that time — "Little Annie Rooney," asking 
her to accompany him on the piano. She laughed at his mistakes as to 
time and tune, saying, "Listen to me — it goes like this." When she 
finished he was so enthusiastic about her voice that he would not go home 
until she had promised to see a vocal teacher in Kansas City, assuring her 
that she was the happy possessor of a voice that should be cultivated and 
which would surely be recognized in the musical world. 

Professor Kronberg was then the best teacher in Kansas City. On 
hearing her sing he said at once, "Put her in the best ladies' quartette," 
which was a professional one, giving performances in Lawrence, Sedalia, 
and other nearby cities, calling themselves the "Kronberg Ladies' 
Quartette." This went on for one year in connection with her other 
employment. Then, coming to St. Louis to act as stenographer for the 
Union Casualty and Surety Company, she took lessons from Professor 
James North, one of the best teachers in the city. Mrs. James L. Blair, 
who was president of the Morning Choral Club, of which society Mrs. 
Knight was an active member, wanted to know why she was not singing 
in the best choir in St. Louis. 

Mrs. Knight began singing in the Congregational Church of Webster 
Groves, of which she continued as the soloist for eight years. Soon after 
taking this position she married Mr. Franklyn Knight, who had been a 
resident of that place, and with whose parents they made their home as 




GERHARD SISTERS PHOTO 



MRS. FRANKLYN KNIGHT 



ROTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 129 

long as they lived, except when she went to New York and abroad to study. 
Mr. Knight is the cashier for the Waters-Pierce OU Company. 

Through Mrs. Blair an arrangement was made for Mrs. Knight to 
sing before Mr. Francis Fischer Powers, one of the best voice teachers of 
New York. 

Mrs. Knight had never suffered from stage fright, had never shown 
any evidence of embarassment before large audiences, but when she stood 
before Mr. Powers, the splendid quality of voice about which Mrs. Blair 
had talked was not apparent, nor was the second attempt startling, because 
she could not utter a sound. Mrs. Blair and Mr. Fischer burst out laugh- 
ing, but after a few minutes he picked out some little simple song and 
asked her to run that over, which she did so sweetly and perfectly, that he 
exclaimed, clapping his hands, "You are going to Kansas City next week." 
He taught a school in Kansas City in the summer and in New York in the 
winter, also gave a summer season of musicales for which Mrs. Knight 
was frequently one of the soloists. She continued as pupil and assistant 
teacher for several years. On one occasion while associated with him in 
New York she sang before the Brooklyn Union League Club, where she 
was given a reception that was nothing short of a rousing ovation. 

Mrs. Knight's husband, also her mother and father-in-law, assisted her 
in studying — they encouraged her and made sacrifices in order that she 
might have these advantages, and she feels deeply grateful to them now, 
when she is giving between forty and fifty lessons each week, filling her 
solo choir position, and often has engagements as soloist for different 
musical clubs in and out of the city. 

Among those before which she has appeared are the Morning Choral 
Club, Aeolian Hall recitals in New York and St. Louis, The Nemes — popu- 
lar chamber music concerts — New York; Vanderveken Philharmonic 
Concerts, Scranton, Pa.; Mendelssohn Choral Club, Springfield, 111.; piano 
recital concerts at Bollman's Hall; Liederkranz; Biennial meeting of the 
Federation of Women's Clubs, Festival Hall, Mass.; Ten O'Clock musi- 
cales, Union Musical Club, Algonquin Club, and she was the first soloist 
for the popular concert of the Choral Symphony Society. Mr. Alfred 
Ernst selected her. He was the director before Mr. Zach. St. Louis 
artists were given the preference in the inaugural performances and Mrs. 
Knight was chosen to be the very first. Mrs. Lulu Kunkel-Burg, the 
violinist, was the second. These concerts have proven very successful. 

While Mrs. Knight was in New York studying with Mr. Francis 
Fischer Powers, she held a choir position in the Grace Methodist Church. 
Three successive winters were spent in New York before she began to 
teach. 



130 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

Coming back to St. Louis, she sang in the quartette of the First Pres- 
byterian Church for three years, which was one of the most prominent 
contralto positions in the city. At another time she studied in New York 
for six months with Oscar Saenger, the voice teacher and coach. Mr. 
Saenger was anxious that Mrs. Knight remain in New York, assuring lier 
all the engagements she wished after a year with him. Even with tliis 
encouragement, Mrs. Knight determined to make St. Louis her field, 
especially as her husband's interests are centered here. Contentment is 
half the battle with her. She has a large class and is devoted to her 
church work. 

When she was appointed by the Committee of the First Church of 
Christ, Scientist, on returning home to accept the position of soloist, she 
rather hesitated about casting her lot with them, but feels now, after six 
years' association, that she has never received such support and apprecia- 
tion during all her years' experience. It is a pleasure to her to give them 
a message in song. 

It has been Mrs. Knight's policy, as far as possible, to keep up with 
the times in her teaching, as well as singing, and with this in view she 
went to Italy for study with Braggiotti of Florence, in 1911, spending four 
months at that time, and again during the summer months of 1912, per- 
fecting tone work and Italian song with Signor Braggiotti and coaching 
German and French masterpieces. He is an acknowledged authority on 
interpreting the works of the old composers. 

She tries in turn to give all these ideas to her pupils, and her semi- 
annual recitals are proof of the importance of conscientious phrasing, clear 
enunciation, tone work and breath control, as well as intelligent interpre- 
tation of song. 

Her method — or she says she has no method — is strictly in line with 
the Italian. Mr. Powers had studied under Lamperti, the elder, and Signor 
Braggiotti has the Italian ideas of tone production and breatliing. 

While in New York singing she substituted for Louise Cleary, a noted 
contralto, in a Christmas Sunday service at St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
which she did brilliantly. She had only two days' notice to sing this 
mass of forty-two pages. The orchestra was composed of seventy-five 
pieces, the choir of sixty, and she was one of the quartette. 

During the World's Fair in 1904, Mrs. Knight sang in Festival Hall 
for the Music Teachers' National Convention, and for several years has 
gone to Warrensburg to sing at the State Normal School May Festival. 
Mrs. Epstein and several other of our best singers, are included in these 
engagements. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L O U I S 131 

Mrs. Knight has had the honor of being on the programme with 
James Whitcomb Riley at dift'erent times. He is a great admirer of lier 
voice. On one occasion he went to Springfield, 111., during Governor 
Tanner's administration, where she was on the programme with him. 
This recital was given at the Opera House and later followed by a recep- 
tion at the executive mansion. Governor Tanner was highly appreciative 
of her singing. Wliitcomb Riley paid her the compliment of saying, "In 
all my many years' experience I have seldom found music more in 
harmony with my programme. I remember the sweet, tender melody 
of her voice again and again witli pleasure. Do yovi remember my poem, 
'To Hear Her Sing?' " 

' "Such joy it is to hear her sing. 

We fall in love with everything; 
Tlie simple things of every day 
Grow lovelier than words can say." 

Music that will call tliese lines to mind is not to be referred to 
indifferently. 

It was necessary on the morning after the recital to leave Springfield 
as early as five o'clock. On tlieir way to the station a stop was made in a 
little German coffee house to get something to eat, and while tlie coffee 
was decidedly "sloppy" Mr. Riley praised the little old man for it, saying 
it was the best lie ever drank. The truth was he could hardly swallow it. 
The proprietor, puffing up, said, "1 will get you another and this is my 
treat," so poor Mr. Riley had a chance to laugh at himself. 

Mrs. Knight is an artistic singer with a fine sympathetic voice, and 
is considered bj' Mr. Kroeger and other critics the peer of contralto singers 
in this city, and as ranking with the very best elsewhere. She is a 
thorough musician, possessing a marked personality of manner which is 
very endearing. 

Her voice has much beauty and range, and her selections are always 
given in most admirable taste. 

Mrs. Knight's emotional analysis and rendition of folklore songs 
and ballads are particularly good and full of feeling; much attention is 
paid to phrasing and interpretation. She stands foremost in the line of 
our artists and in the hearts of her friends. 



132 ROTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I S 



M' 



MRS. DAVID KRIEGSHABER 

■ RS. DAVID KRIEGSHABER, the pianiste, made her first appearance 
in pubhc at the age of nine years, before tlie real music lovers of 
St. Louis, who gathered in former days in the piano store of 
Mr. P. G. Anton, the father of the violoncellist, Mr. P. G. Anton, Jr., living 
in our citj' today, and enjoying a splenchd reputation as a virtuoso on his 
instrument, preferring the appreciation of home people to the alluring 
offers of fame abroad. Another of the most noted performers of the 
violoncello is the Russian artist, Mr. Vladimir E. Dubinsky, a gold-medal 
graduate of the Moscow Conservatory. 

On Monday and W^ednesday evenings of each week the music store 
of Mr. Anton, then located at 308-10 North Broadway, and later at Eleventh 
and Olive Streets, was the gathering place for the men and women who 
were instrumental largelj' in putting St. Louis on its present musical 
footing and giving it the prestige which it holds in the musical world. 

St. Louis has true artists, but they are also home-lovers; many of 
them might be touring the country in concert work as soloists, or in 
grand opera. There are also many who have gained international repu- 
tations. Mrs. Kriegshaber prefers to keep the honors for her home city. 
At the early age of nine years, accompanied by her mother, she attended 
these Monday-night musicales, where she was recognized and encouraged 
for her unusual abUity. She remembers well that she was punished each 
time before she could be induced to go, and that she never willingly 
practiced then or later; but her mother, realizing that she was liighly 
gifted, remained firm and insisted on regular hours of practice, as well as 
attendance of musical performances which would aid and influence her, 
so that now, after years of study, she is accorded by our well-known 
musical critic, Mr. Ernest Kroeger, as well as others, to be a performer 
of finest technique, and an all-around artistic interpreter of modern com- 
posers and the classics. Perhaps she does not rank with Josef Lhevinne, 
the famous Russian pianist (who is the world's greatest interpreter of 
Johann Brahams), now living in Berlin, Germany, or even with our 
American pianist, Fannie Bloomfield Ziesler, of Chicago, but she has an 
exquisite style and finish in her manner of execution that places her very 
high as a concert performer. 

Since its organization Mrs. Kriegshaber has been a member of tlie 
Tuesday Musical Club, which was the first piano club of any importance 
existing in St. Louis. Later the St. Louis Musical Club was organized. 
These two progressed for some time when they united under the name of 




KAJtWARA PHL'Tt! 



MRS. DAVID KRIEGSHABER 



I 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O U I S 133 

the Union Musical, and under that flourished for several years, until it was 
changed again to the St. Louis Musical Club, of wliich Mrs. Kriegshaber 
is tlie president, ha^'ing held this office for two years. One of the objects 
of the organization is to encourage and aid amateur musicians, and assist 
them in developing talent that might lead them to a successful career. 
Once or twice each year they bring artists to give concerts and for many 
years the incomparable Kneisel Quartette came here under their auspices. 
No other organization in the country, and hardly in the world, has done 
as much to make chamber music popular and familiar as this quartette, 
now in its twenty-seventh year. Once a month this club holds its meeting 
in tlie Musical Arts Building. Mrs. Paul Tupper and Mrs. George Frankel 
have each held the office of the presidency. 

Mrs. Kriegshaber has rendered selections for the popular concerts 
given by the Symphony Society, and for the Morning Choral at different 
times during the past three or four seasons. 

In 1912 she played with the orchestra, but before that her programme 
consisted onlj- of solos. She has also given numbers for the Union Club, 
and for Mr. Ernest Kroeger's recitals; in 1912 the lectures were on 
"Tristan and Isolde." In 1913 an explanation of Wagner's opera, "Die 
Walkiire," which is played as duos on two pianos to illustrate the various 
motifs. This opera musicale was given for the benefit of the Smith 
College Club Fund, which is to be used in endowing chairs in the new 
departments of the college work at the institution. 

Mrs. Kriegshaber is now the organist for the King's Highway Presby- 
terian Church. One summer she acted as substitute at St. John's Church. 
Sfie also gives private lessons at her home. In the Ladies' Friday Musical 
Club she takes a very active part. Tliis is only for piano and singing. 
The meetings take place, as the name indicates, on Friday of each week 
at the home of some one of the members. Jewish women compose the 
membership almost entirely. A Sliakespearean recital composed the 
programme for the April concert. Tliis club was organized thirty years 
ago, and has always been successfully conducted, numbering among its 
members many of the best musicians of the city. The Jewish women of 
St. Louis form a class of the most gifted, skillful and appreciative mem- 
bers of every club and society that has ever been in existence. Their 
congeniality and talent is undisputed. The charter members of the 
Friday club are Mrs. Louis Hirsch, Mrs. J. P. Weil, Mrs. Adolph Drey and 
Mrs. Joseph Glaser. The club numbers about twenty-five members, and 
their work shows the skill of professionals. 

We have much for which to thank our musical associates. We could 
have no better friends — the charm of their song and music which unfolds 



134 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 

to US all the delights of the works of the great composers, and who through 
the medium of their skill and emotions in interpreting the masterpieces 
revive and cheer us physically and mentally. 

Mrs. Kriegshaber was born in Tipton, Missouri, and while a child of 
seven came to St. Louis, beginning her music lessons with Mr. Eliling, 
under whose tuition she remained for seven years. Going through the 
grammar and high schools, she also took lessons on the organ during that 
time from him. At the age of eighteen this was followed by a year's 
study under Mr. A. Epstein, and a course of harmony for five seasons with 
Mr. E. Kroeger. She has never gone abroad to study, never gone away 
from St. Louis for any instruction in her musical education, believing that 
she could be guided in this development just as well by resident instruc- 
tors as by those li\ing abroad, and results show that she has been wise in 
her judgment. 

Mrs. Kriegshaber was Miss Stella Weiner. Her father, Joseph 
Weiner, died some years ago, and will be remembered as the druggist 
who owned the pharmacy on Twenty-eighth and Washington Avenue for 
many years. Her mother resides in the house next door to her, and a 
sister, Mrs. M. A. Goldstein, is a resident of Chicago. Mr. David Kriegs- 
haber, her husband, whom she married thirteen years ago, is a native of 
Kentucky. He is engaged in the wholesale liquor business. They have 
two children. 

At these Monday musicales at the Anton Store all were welcome who 
wished to take part and enjoyed music. Those who wanted to play 
were cordially received. There was much string music with piano accom- 
paniment, trios, quartettes, quintettes, etc. Among those taking part 
prominently were Mr. Louis Hammerstein, G. Herrich, Ernst Spiering, 
Egmont Froelich, John Boehmen, Madame Strothotte and her son, 
Arnold; Robert Bernays, who later married a sister of the bandmaster, 
Sousa, and resided in Wasliington untU his death; Frank Geeks, Sr. and 
Jr.; Mr. Ehling, Miss Lina Anton, and others. 

P. G. Anton, Sr., was quite a composer, and one of the real worth- 
while compositions played at the St. Louis Centennial celebration of 
the musicians held in St. Louis in 1909 was his "Symphonic Overture." 
Mr. Anton died in 1896. His daughter, Lena, married Mr. August Roeb- 
belen, who was for eighteen years the secretary of the Philharmonic 
Orchestra of New York. They have one son. 

Lena Anton made a concert tour of the country and she stands now as 
one of the leaders in the pianistic world, especially in the rendition of 
modern works. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 135 

Another successful St. Louisan was Emmy von der Hoya, who 
married Mr. Schultz, of the Boston Quintet Club, and whose son, Amadeus, 
at the age of seven years, was a wonderful violinist. When nine years of 
age he plaj'ed in the Kaiser Saal before the King and a most critical 
audience. Although this privilege was not usually granted to children 
as prodigies, yet this boy was received on account of his mature work in 
spite of his youth. 

Theodore Spiering, the son of Ernst Spiering, of the Spiering 
Quartette, of Chicago, which was one of the best known for many years, 
has made a great reputation in Berlin, where he recently, after a few 
hours' notice, was called on to lead one of the noted orchestras of Berlin 
in the rendition of the most difficult of Brahms' masterpieces, which he 
did so brilliantly that it has added much glory to his growing fame. 

Still another is Charlotta Hax Rosatti, who was a grand opera singer. 
She played before the most critical houses in St. Petersburg and all of the 
principal capitals where the German language is spoken and where Italian 
opera was at home. She never failed to make a success of her work at 
any one of these places. 

Mrs. Strothotte was one of the founders of the St. Louis Philharmonic 
Society which had Sobolewski as a leader and of whose family some 
members are still living in St. Louis — Olga and Selika, a singer and 
teacher who gained quite a reputation in Europe. 

During the period of these musicales there was no artist of any repu- 
tation who was not at some time the guest of this St. Louis coterie headed 
by Mr. Anton, Sr. Among them Winiawski, one of the greatest violinists 
whose style of playing was on the order of Ysaj'e and who was also a 
famous composer; Wilhelmj was a visitor; his reputation was universal; 
Rubinstein, lima de Murska, Jenny Lind, Sternberg, celebrated Russian 
pianist, and others. 

Ernest Kroeger, R. S. Poppen, Mr. North, Chas. Kunkel, were all 
pupils of Mr. Philip Gottlieb Anton. Mr. Anton, Sr., studied composition 
with Rubinstein under Sechter in Germany. 

Another place where later musicians gathered was with Chas. Balmer, 
the owner of a music store, and organist at Christ Church Cathedral. 
Mrs. Balmer was a well-known musician; she died a few years ago. 

When they met at these musicales it was with ambitious motives, 
not merely for the pleasure of pastime. As soon as a composition would 
be published by a first-class house in Europe, they would get it, and it 
would be studied, discussed, and in that way they kept in touch with the 



136 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ii T. L V I S 

progress of the musical world. This is still done by the survivors of that 
old class of music lovers. 

Mrs. Kriegshaber's exquisite execution makes the listener feel at ease 
— contented to hear the continuous stream of melodious combinations 
coupled with perfect harmony. 

In the allegro parts, and particularly where the "scherzo" division 
develops, one hears a perfect "staccato" which makes one think of 
sparkling brilliants flashing out of the keyboard from under the flexible 
touch of her wonderfully developed fingers. At the climax of her per- 
formance one lives througli happy moments of esthetic pleasure, so that 
one is loth to come from under the spell of her music. 

Mrs. Kriegshaber is a brunette with a brilhant complexion and 
engaging manners, very simple and unaffected. She is ever ready to 
delight one with her music. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MARGUERITE MARTYN 



M' 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I 8 137 



MISS MARGUERITE MARTYN 

ISS MARGUERITE MARTYN holds a unique and important 
position in the newspaper world. There are not many women 
in St. Louis today, or in the country, who can do the work she is 
doing — writing and illustrating lier own stories, in an original and unique 
style. She is an artist in the truest sense of the word; her feature stories, 
interviews, descriptions of places and people in all walks of life, from 
countesses to cooks, and cardinals to ci'iminals, are made still more 
photographic by apt and faithful illustrations and portraits. 

They reveal the essential characteristics — let them be eccentricities, 
peculiarities, perversions or syncrasies, she catches and portrays them 
witli a skillful pen — both in words and pictures. Her conceptions are 
markedly original in every detail. It is a wonderful facultj', to be able 
to take a pencil and reproduce one's impressions in such a manner as to 
give instruction as well as pleasure. Miss Martyn's pictures have an 
influence for good — they depict dangers and temptations, evils and vices, 
and make appeals for better conditions in morals, municipal affairs, 
politics and labor problems, and many times catch the eye of people who 
do not read in detail much about needed reforms and iinprovements — in 
that way securing their endorsement and assistance. Sometimes the 
freakish styles in dress of women, and doings in society among its 
devotees, come in for a measure of laudable criticism. 

Her pictures are always looked forward to with a great deal of specu- 
lation and interest by men and women of all classes, not being trivial or 
light, but carrying messages that are appropriately suggestive in their 
meaning. 

Marguerite Martyn's mother was Miss Fanny Plumb, of Springfield, 
Missouri. Her family have lived there for four generations. Portland, 
Oregon, was the home of her parents during their early married life. 
When Marguerite was five years old her father — a Virginian — died sud- 
denly at the age of thirty years while occupjang a position as railway 
superintendent at that place. Her mother was left a widow with three 
little children. She studied telegraphy and was given employment by the 
railway company with which her husband had been connected. When 
Marguerite was seventeen years old they moved back to Springfield, 
Missouri, wliere their friends were among the best socially. 

Realizing that Marguerite had unusual artistic ability, her mother sent 
her to St. Louis to take a four years' course in the Art School of the Wash- 
ington University. 



138 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L0VI8 

At Springfield her life had been very sociable, but she preferred to 
dispense with this for the far more interesting and absorbing work of her 
profession. Her brother Philip has influenced and encouraged her in her 
chosen work in many ways. 

Miss Martyn says the most practical way to get an education to 
become a newspaper artist is to keep continually drawing and practicing. 
Of course it is good to get the elements at school, but keeping at it until one 
cultivates a style of one's own is the best method. If one is persistent 
enough a style will evolve of itself. The main idea in newspaper work is 
to do something original. Good drawing is necessary, but the important 
thing is the idea. And technic is also necessary, one must forget all 
about materials. Miss Martyn had quite a bit of trouble mastering pen 
and ink drawings — putting them in the proper shape for reproduction — 
which she learned after going on the newspaper. 

During the World's Fair in 1904, Miss Martyn made a poster, which 
she thought would be applicable and timely to its closing, and carried it to 
the Sunday editor of the "Post-Dispatch." While he found it good, it was 
too late to make use of it. He requested her to bring in other drawings. 
She took a whole portfolio of them, for inspection — sketches that she 
thought would be suitable for newspaper work — black and wliite draw- 
ings. She was promised employment, but did not go back until a year 
later, when she was taken on the staff in the art department, where 
illustrations are made for the Sunday Magazine stories. This work was 
continued until four years ago, when she began illustrating her own 
stories, and since then has been under contract not to sign her name to 
any sketches except those made for the "Post-Dispatch." 

Up to that time she had never written a story — in fact, avoided 
writing letters whenever it was possible — and when given an assignment 
to go to Belleville, to interview a woman, she told the managing editor it 
would be impossible, she could not do it. He insisted on her trjing, and 
on her return she told him she had written the story — had done the best 
she could — but there was nothing in it worth while. He remarked, "The 
story blew up — did it?" but kept it to see if there was any merit in it, and 
later called her in to say "In the very last paragraph there is a germ of a 
story; now begin again and write it backwards." That was the first 
instruction she ever had, and she has been writing successfully ever since. 

This gives an idea of the newspaper point of view — most writers work 
up a story to the climax, but the newspapers want the last development in 
the first paragraph. Of course that rule docs not hold good in every 
case. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L O V I 8 139 

There is not, as a usual thing, much in journalism for women, except 
in feature work, because men can do general reporting better. There was 
a time when a woman newspaper reporter was considered a novelty — 
just like a war correspondent, and a time when women were looked down 
upon for working for a newspaper that "sells for a cent a copy," or for 
going to get information about the private affairs of women. The 
general opinion, in regard to their work, has changed very much, and the 
woman who can furnish stories or sketches that keep up an interest in 
the paper for which she writes, as Miss Martyn does, is regarded much the 
same as if she were engaged in any other profession — and demands the 
admiration of those who realize her superior skill. 

Some newspaper writers think it is the most thankless task in the 
world. There are high-browed persons who look upon one doing this work 
with contempt. Writers who come in actual contact with the persons 
written of — who deal with facts and real flesh-and-blood people — have the 
greatest opportunitj' for useful influence. Readers maj' remember the 
beautiful words of fine writers, but real-life stories and experiences are 
the ones froin whose lessons the multitude profit. 

There are persons who imagine themselves too finely constituted, who 
flee from publicity and its agents — the reporters — as if from the plague. 
Unless they have some fault, some shame to hide, there is no need to fear 
a fair-minded reporter. And then, of course, there are those who seek 
publicity, and they are nuisances. 

Miss Martj^n says: "Weak and thoughtless reporters themselves 
encourage tliis attitude in snobbish, undemocratic, useless people. They 
are inclined to take too seriously the slightest activities of the so-called 
upper classes, and to treat too lightly the niovements of everyday folk, 
among whom life is really lived, and drama, romance and material for 
stories always building. One young girl reporter actually chose between 
the alternative of marriage and suicide rather than ask a gentlewoman 
the details of her published application for divorce. It turned out that 
this beautiful and fashionable 'lady' wished to be freed froin her hus- 
band, because he had lost his fortune, and could no longer shower her with 
the luxuries and clothes, which had in a great measure made her beautiful. 
The girl reporter had turned in any number of good stories and had never 
hesitated to pry into the affairs of the poor and unfortunate, but the rich 
woman dazzled her. She was convinced that her plight was pitiable, 
and her feelings were to be protected from publicity. Luckily for the 
sake of journalism's reputation the girl reporter chose marriage instead 
of suicide, when she refused this assignment." 



140 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I S 



There is a large school of short-story writers who delight in writing 
of the adventurous element in newspaper work, and not a few who 
like to explore the underhanded methods of getting news. When Miss 
Martyn took up this work she was told that, with her sensitive nature, 
her feelings would become blunted or she would not last a week in the 
business — but instead, is far more sensitive to other people's feelings, 
with an increased sense of mercy and sympathy, and her sensibilities 
are not any the less acute through experience in all kinds of assign- 
ments. She has never been asked to, nor would she use any means of 
obtaining information that would in any way lower her self-respect. 

As to the romance of journalism, when one must get down to work 
at eight a. m. and work until five in the evening, and arrange one's 
leisure so as to be fit for the same routine next day, the vision of adventure 
is soon forgotten. It is true that reporters and newspaper artists are 
always on the spot, whenever something is going on, but they are there 
in the roll of on-looker — never participant. Sometimes they feel that 
all of life is going on without them; their chief interest is in getting 
back to the office, and putting their impressions into the next edition — 
being ready for tomorrow's biggest event, which crowds yesterday's 
out of their mind. Exciting? Of course, it might be that — but one 
must forbid the indulgence. An artist and writer must have an absolutely 
steady hand and concentration of mind, or there will be no good work 
accomplished. 

All of Miss Martyn's writing and drawing is done in a crowded 
corner of the same big room in which the rest of the editorial staff 
write. There are a hundred working in the same big room. There is 
the noise of typewriters, telegraph instruments, and the presses above 
and below. These sounds, of course, in time become a dull monotone, 
and their minds are so quiet, so intent, that if a woman comes in and 
raises a voice that is in the least bit strange to them, she disturbs the 
serenity and they look up to see the cause. 

It is often asked if interesting friendships are not formed among 
the distinguished persons interviewed. Miss Martyn likes to be friendly 
and remain in touch with thein, but before her story about one is on 
the press she is busy getting material for another. The new subject 
crowds the last one from her memory. 

As to what is her favorite among the wide variety of assignments 
she has covered, the "Lid Club" story stands out most vividly in her 
memory. She spent several evenings visiting these places, and her faithful 
report and sketches had much to do with the city investigation, the 
grand jury report, and the eventual closing of at least those she visited. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O U I 8 141 

Substantial results like this can not fail to give her a satisfied feeling 
of accomplishment, instead of thinking her sketches go to light the fires 
of many homes without being read. 

Journalism seems to be the most fugitive, as well as the most thankless, 
of all work, but when one observes how easily a mob is swayed, and 
led this way and that, one is almost appalled by the opportunity at the 
disposal of a newspaper worker. If one can ever so insidiously, with 
just a word here and there, a cartoon now and then, sway the people 
to a greater faith in and respect for the good work and influence of 
the newspapers, one will not want to do anything higher either in literature 
or art. 

The work of the reporter is often unjustly condemned. Many evils 
are exposed, of which nothing would be known were it not for the 
newspapers. The fear of publicity has checked many a dangerous con- 
spiracy in the planning, and wliile scandals are given notoriety, a moral 
and a warning go with them that serve a good purpose. 

Miss Martyn is frequently asked whether she makes notes and 
sketches during her interviews. It is very odd that while some people 
insist upon it, others will shut up like clams when they see the note 
book appear. Any sort of notes destroy conversation, and relying on 
one's memory is by far the best. Sketches are made on the spot, unless 
the physiognomy is one not easily forgotten. In interviewing she shows 
a rare ability — asking but few questions and then listening so intently 
one feels impelled to give the desired information. One of the first 
qualifications of the interviewer is not to do all the talking. 

Tliis talented woman has the face of an artist — she is slim, rather 
tall, with red brown hair and beautiful brown eyes. To say she is quiet 
does not express it — meek is the proper word, not realizing that she 
is doing anything out of the ordinary, nor that the skillful way in which 
she handles her pencil ranks her as unusually gifted. She says "anyone 
could do as I — if she only took a pencil and tried," which many of 
us might be inclined to argue. 

Miss Martyn was married to Clair Kenamore, who holds the position 
of Telegraph Editor on the "Post-Dispatch," in 1913. 



142 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I 



MISS MARY C. McCULLOCH 

THE name of Miss Mary C. McCulloch means much in the educational 
circles of St. Louis — she is the supervisor of all the public kinder- 
gartens in the city, and has held this position for many years. 

Very early in life Miss McCulloch manifested a keen interest in the 
children with whom she came in contact, gathering around her the little 
ones in her neighborhood and entertaining them with stories and games. 
Her successful work in the Sunday school, with large numbers of younger 
children, attracted the attention of Mr. Eber Peacock, superintendent of 
Sunday schools (who was then president of the Board of Education), and 
to him she is indebted for the suggestion to take up kindergarten training. 

A letter of introduction to William T. Harris, superintendent of 
public schools, led to a conference with liim in which he presented strong 
arguments in favor of this profession for young women, and encouraged 
her to accept a position as volunteer assistant at the Pope Kindei'garten. 

The next year she was transferred to the Stoddard Kindergarten, 
where she served as assistant and director for eight years. The Board 
of Education selected Miss McCulloch to assist Miss Dozier, because of 
the ill-health of the latter, and assigned to her the supervision of the 
afternoon kindergartens. Several years later she was given the super- 
vision of all the kindergartens. 

A broad field of influence was oiTered her through the position of 
kindergarten normal instructor — having interpreted to hundreds of young 
women the educational ideals presented by Frocbel in his "Mother Play 
Book," "Pedagogics of the Kindergarten," "Education of Man," and taught 
them stories, songs and games, thus fitting them for the development 
of younger children in the home, kindergarten and playgrounds. 

Miss McCulloch was prepared for this special work by the lectures 
and inspiring influence of Miss Susan E. Blow, the founder of public 
kindergartens in St. Louis, with whom she was closely associated for 
eight years. 

To the genius of Mrs. Clara Beeson Hubbard, the author of "Merry 
Songs and Games," she is indebted for the revelation of the value of 
the spontaneous play of childhood. 

In the early days of her kindergarten experience she availed herself 
of the literary advantages ofiered by the lectures given at the Eads 
Kindergarten by William T. Harris, Susan E. Blow and Denton J. Snider. 




MISS MARY C. McCULLOCH 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 143 

Since the organization of the St. Louis Froebel Society, twenty-five 
years ago. Miss McCulloch has served as president. The different kinder- 
garten teachers of the city come together once a month to hear lectures 
by specialists upon subjects either directly or indirectly related to child 
nurture. Susan E. Blow, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Hamilton W. Mabie, 
Elizabeth Harrison, Lucy Wheelock, Emelie Poulson, Marie Shcdlock 
and many other gifted speakers have addressed the society. The annual 
kindergarten day festival, held under the auspices of the Froebel Society, 
is an important event in the life of the kindergarteners, who assemble in 
the Liederkranz Club to sing the songs and play the games that delight 
the children. It is always a joyous occasion for those who participate 
in its pleasures. 

Believing that the work of the kindergarten could be more effectively 
done if the co-operation of the mothers was gained. Miss McCulloch 
has been indefatigable in her efforts to establish mothers' meetings in 
all the kindergartens. In many districts of the city these meetings are 
proving of inestimable value in bringing the home and school nearer 
together, and in the development of the true community spirit. 

For years Miss McCulloch, as vice-president of the Playgrounds 
Association, was active in furthering the interest in this good cause. 
She has kept in touch wilh the trend of the kindergarten movement, and 
progressive methods, by attending large educational meetings and entering 
into discussion of subjects of educational import. 

At the Milwaukee meeting of the National Educational Association 
she was elected president of the kindergarten department. She is a 
charter member of the International Kindergarten Union, and was chosen 
for its first secretary. She also has held all important offices in this 
world-known organization, including the presidency, and has served on 
many committees with loyalty and efficiency. 

Two j'ears ago Miss McCulloch passed through one of the happiest 
experiences of her life — she joined a party of kindergarten co-workers 
on an outing which was known as "The Froebel Pilgrimage." Over 100 
teachers made the journey across the ocean on the steamer "Devonian." 

For many it was the first trip abroad and was most enjoyable because 
of the association of so many congenial companions. The journey was 
one of complete rest and relaxation, so that the travelers were in good 
condition to appreciate sight-seeing and social pleasures. 

On the way to Germany they were joined by representative kinder- 
garteners from Edinburgh, London, Paris, Munich and Frankfort, who 
were eager to participate in tlie festivities planned to take place in 
Blankenburg — the town where the first kindergarten was established in 



144 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

1837 — and where the pilgrims were cordially received and entertained 
as guests in the homes of the people, as the hotel accommodations were 
not sufficient for such a number of strangers. They all entered into 
the spirit of the celebration. Some of the older residents had received 
their training in Frocbel's first kindergarten. The town hall was chosen 
for the festival, and under Miss McCulloch's leadership young and old 
marched, danced and played games with childlike abandon. The party 
also drove in coaches about twenty miles to Oberweissbach, where Froebel 
was born in 1782, and visited the church where his father was pastor. A 
visit was made to Schweina — a village near Froebel's last abode in 
Marienthal — where his body lies buried. At his monument fitting tributes 
were paid to his memory — children scattered flowei's, his old pupils in 
the "Garden of Children" decorated his grave, the Froebel pilgrims offered 
beautiful wreaths and Miss McCulIoch read Miss Blow's "Tribute to 
Froebel." 

"It is the supreme privilege of genius to repeat the creative deed 
of God and make men in its own image," she read. "In thousands of 
hearts wherein he has quickened nurturing impulse; in thousands of 
minds wherein he has quickened nurturing impulse; in thousands of minds 
wherein he has awakened nurturing ideals; in thousands of wills con- 
secrated by his influence to nurturing service, Froebel lives today. 

"As you meet to honor his memory think of him not as dead, but 
as living an expanded and multiplied life. His spirit speaking through 
the mother play is bringing innumerable women to consciousness of 
their own deepest yearning and highest mission. His version of truth 
symbolically presented in the kindergarten gifts is stimulating the pre- 
scient imagination of innumerable children. His solitary call to live for 
the children is echoed by a world chorus. Not in the grave is Froebel 
to be found, but in the books he wrote, in the kindergartens he created, 
in the new consciousness he called forth." 

Foi- several seasons Miss McCulloch enjoyed the privilege of being 
a student at the Concord School of Philosophy, where she mingled with 
such delightful people as Emerson, Alcott, Davidson, Miss Blow', Miss 
Peabody, William T. Harris, and others; also spent one summer in the 
literary school conducted by Mr. Davidson in the Adirondack Mountains. 

Miss McCulloch was one of the charier members of the Wednesday 
Club and has been a member of the educational section for many years. 
She was the chairman of the Entertainment Committee of the Child's 
Welfare Exhibit which was held in St. Louis in 1912. 

As the name indicates, she is of Scotch descent on her father's side. 
Her maternal grandfather was Dr. John McChesney, a noted surgeon 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O U I S 145 

of Potsdam, N. Y. Before her marriage Miss McCulloch's mother was 
a teacher in the St. Louis public schools. She has been a widow for 
the past ten years, and now at the age of eighty-six retains her mental 
\'igor and is interested in all of the vital questions of the day. 

Miss McCuUoch is an energetic and sprightly woman, overflowing 
with an abundance of vitality, which is the keynote of her success. It 
is positively infectious as far as the children are concerned. They become 
animated and bright as soon as Miss McCulloch mingles with them, and 
look forward with happy anticipation to the days on which she tells 
them stories. The influence for good of such a woman as Miss McCulloch 
in the lives of the many hundreds of children over whom she has super- 
vision can not be estimated. 

Her picture may show the twinkle in her eye, but it does not express 
the music in her voice. What a delightful world this would be for 
children if everyone understood and loved them as Miss McCulloch, the 
"children gardener," does. 



146 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



DR. MARY HANCOCK McLEAN 

DR. MARY McLEAN, one of the skillful surgeons of St. Louis, was 
born in Washington, Mo. Dr. Elijah McLean was her father, 
a general practitioner of that place for many years. He was 
born near Lexington, Ky., and was a son of tiie Rev. David McLean, 
a Baptist minister, who came to Missouri to fight the Indians. Elijah 
McLean had the misfortune of seeing one of his brothers scalped by 
the red men. Schools were broken up by the Indian wars, so that be 
had very little opportunity for gaining an education. However, he was 
a great reader and constantly improved his mind by investigations and 
scientific research work, standing at the head of his profession for over 
thirty years. Dr. McLean determined to give his children the advantages 
wliich he liimself could not have, and this daughter, Mary, was sent 
to Lindenwood, St. Charles, Mo., when tliirteen years old. Previous 
to this she had private instructions at home under a tutor. She remained 
in Lindenwood three years, graduating with the class of 1878; then 
studied at home again under a tutor for another year and entered Vassar, 
wliich she attended until completing the work of the sophomore year. 
Mary C. Stafford was Dr. McLean's mother. She was born in North 
Carolina, of English ancestry, and was the daughter of the Rev. James 
Stafford, a Presbyterian minister, who left the South because he was 
refused the privilege of preaching to the negroes. After that he moved 
to Illinois. His daughter became a teacher in the public schools, and 
was acting in this capacity in Missouri when she married Elijah McLean. 
Dr. Mary McLean's mother died of the effects of a fibroid tumor. Surgical 
operations were not performed at that time; this is not considered a 
major case today, and it is with the deepest regret that Dr. McLean 
realizes how easily her mother's life might have been saved bad she or 
others known then what is now done by means of surgerj'. 

After Mary McLean returned from Vassar to her father's house to 
spend her vacation she thought of taking up law. With her father's 
assistance she read Blackstone for one summer, but gave it up. Then 
she and her brother were both sent to Ann Arbor, Mich., to take a course 
in medicine. After a few months her brother decided he did not like 
the study, but she continued, graduating in 1883. One of her classmates, 
while attending the University of Michigan, was Dr. William J. Mayo, 
one of the Mayo brothers who have achieved such fame for their extensive 
and successful practice and hospital work in Minnesota. Dr. McLean 
came to St. Louis in 1884, in April. A year later she was appointed 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 147 

assistant physician for the Female Hospital. Tliis was a large institution 
with a capacitj' of almost three hundred beds. Since then it has been 
annexed to the City Hospital and forms a part of that department for 
the care of women. Dr. McLean was the only woman who ever held 
that position, and it was considered quite an honor. 

There was a strong prejudice against women in the profession at 
that time, but the good work she did overcame, in a great measure, the 
feeling. In 1886 she was elected the first, and only woman member for 
fifteen years, of the St. Louis Medical Society. The opinions given of 
her work are of the highest and best; it is so carefullj^ and thorouglily 
prepared. Her brethren of the medical fraternity recognize her skill 
and ability in meeting baffling, intricate phases of different maladies. 
Her specialty is the treatment of the diseases of women, and the surgical 
cases that come up in this connection. She is a woman of great strength 
of purpose and individuality of mind. Cool and collected in operating, 
she inspires her patients to confidence as well as her assistants. 

Dr. McLean says she has been greatly assisted by Dr. Howard Kelly, 
of Johns Hopkins University of Baltimore, who gave her every oppor- 
tunity to witness his work in hospitals and office. It was he who advised 
her to branch out and do more general surgical work, including all 
branches of abdominal surgery. Dr. Cullen, of the same institution, was 
also of great assistance to her. Dr. McLean operates in many of the 
hospitals in the city. Her office hours are in the afternoons at her home. 

In speaking of her experiences, in the beginning of her professional 
work after going through college, the Doctor went back to Lindenwood and 
lectured there for a year on health and hj^giene, for which she was paid 
$5.00 each time. Wliile an interne at the Woman's Hospital she received 
no salary — but had few expenses — as board and laundrj' were furnished. 
This work gave her much valuable experience. Leaving the hospital 
she went into private practice with Dr. Lavelle, a pioneer in the profes- 
sion. Her office was upstairs and Dr. Lavelle's downstairs. For three 
weeks she did not have a single patient, and became distressed and 
discouraged — thought of leaving St. Louis — but cUscovered that the maid 
who answered the door was one who had been in the employ of Dr. 
Lavelle for many years, so she saw the necessity of changing to a down- 
stairs office or getting a new maid. She did both and prospects looked 
brighter. After the second year she was self-supporting and patients 
gradually increased. 

Dr. McLean, referring to her first major case, says it was of the 
utmost importance to her — she spent days preparing for it. This was 
on an old colored woman who had been her servant. It cost her $250.00 



148 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

to get the woman's house arranged as a hospital for the occasion; she 
also engaged the services of two trained nurses, and for three days 
lived in a state of anxiety. But the colored woman survived. Since then 
no operation has seemed so diflficult. 

Some years back Dr. McLean went to Japan, intending to establish 
herself as a surgeon there, but her health would not permit so she 
returned bringing students with her, whom she has thoroughly educated 
so that she could send them back fully equipped to open hospitals and do 
surgical work in their own country. Some time ago Japanese women 
in need of surgical assistance were not allowed the services of a male 
physician and died without it; there were no women doctors, but since 
then, due to the efforts of the missionary workers, this is gradually 
changing, and one of the young women who has just graduated under 
the guidance of Dr. McLean, will be the eighth woman surgeon in China. 
Since the new form of government much is expected in reform lines 
in China, and the opening of new fields of work for women in all 
directions is but a question of time. 

St. Louis is justly proud of Dr. Mary McLean. She is an honor to 
the profession which she has chosen and to the city in which she resides. 
Her practice is very extensive. Those who have come in contact with 
her have profited and benefited by her knowledge. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS LOUISE McNAIR 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U 1 S 149 



MISS LOUISE McNAIR 

HOSMER HALL, a school for girls, is presided over by Miss Louise 
McNair. This school was founded in 1884 by Miss Clara G. Shepard 
and Miss Martha H. Matthews, and, at a later date, was incorporated 
under the laws of Missouri. In 1896 Miss Matthews assumed sole control 
of the school when it was removed to its present location at Washington 
and Pendleton Avenues. 

Upon the death of Miss Matthews in 1907, the management was 
transferred to the present principal. Miss Louise McNair, who had for 
many years been closely identified with the school. Hosmer Hall was 
founded a few months after Miss Cuthbert's school closed, which was 
one of the early schools for young girls. 

The aim of Hosmer Hall is to fit girls for the responsibilities and 
opportunities of later life, to lay the foundation for a broad and wise 
intelligence which will enable them to live worthily wherever the future 
leads them, and to develop the highest type of American womanhood. 
Over a quarter of a century of activity has given this school a standing 
which is sutBcient evidence of work done. 

Founded at a time when college education for women was in its 
initial stage, Hosmer Hall has from the beginning laid especial stress 
upon fitting its pupils to enter the leading women's colleges. Miss McNair 
is often asked why should a girl spend time in learning mathematics 
and Latin in college, studies which they rarely ever put to practical 
uses. She believes very strongly that those subjects are of value because 
they give a fine mental training by reason of their very difficulty. One 
does not acquire character and the proper training by doing the things 
that are easy, but by doing the things that are hard and tax the reasoning 
powers, and therefore Miss McNair believes that school work should be 
difficult, also that the knowledge gained from the study of mathematics 
can be obtained in no other way. She believes that a girl can make a 
better loaf of bread by knowing latin and mathematics than she could 
with any amount of study of domestic science alone. In other words, 
why does an educated woman manage her house well? Because she 
has had educated training. The best thing Miss McNair says that we 
can start children in this life with is a trained mind — either for mental 
or physical work — then they are prepared for whatever must be done. 

She believes that children should, in school, have enough work to 
keep them busy; that while they are attending school their business is 



150 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

to go to school; that if their spare time were spent, as it was some years 
ago, in learning the lessons of domestic life she could feel different about 
engrossing most of their time; but when tlieir spare time is spent in 
going downtown to matinees and picture shows she protests very vigor- 
ously. The important thing she wishes to do is to train the girls' minds, 
but let them do their own thinking. She wants the girls whom she teaches 
to turn out the kind of women who are going to do something with 
their lives, and that is true of the majority of the alumnae of tliis 
school. There are many who have been successful — Misses Sara Teasdale, 
Caroline Risque, Zoe Akins — are among the notable women in our town, 
and many others who have gone to distant homes are living useful 
lives — lives with a purpose. 

Miss McNair says it is no slight matter to send a girl away from 
home for one, two, or three years of the most impressionable years of 
her life; and yet many parents are so situated that this is the only 
possible means of educating their daughters. In selecting a school for 
these important periods there are many things to be considered. Shall 
she go to a school in the country or to a city school? Shall she go 
far away from home, or shall she be near enough for frequent visits? 
Shall she go to a large school or a small one? Then when the school 
is selected there is the all-important question of the course of study she 
shall pursue. Shall she go to college, or shall she go to a fashionable 
finishing school? Shall she follow the regular course for graduation or 
shall she take a special course adapted to her individual needs? Shall 
she devote most of her time to music, accomplishments, art, elocution, 
etc., or shall she take the purely disciplinary studies of the old classical 
course? In order to answer these questions wisely for one's daughter 
it is necessary to think a little about the reason for sending a girl to 
school. For what purpose is she to be educated? It is a truism to 
say that education is for the purpose of training boys and girls for the 
business of living, and yet it is one of those truisms that come to us 
as new truths when applied to our own case. The first essential for 
wise living is character, and that is the ultimate end of all education, 
either consciously or unconsciously. There are certain traits that can 
best be obtained — that can hardly otherwise be attained — by educa- 
tion in school. The first of these and the most important is self-control. 

The pupil begins tliis lesson in the earUest grades when he learns 
that he must not talk at all in school; that he must remain in his seat 
at tlie proper times; that he must do the work that is given him. Even 
with our modern methods of making the first steps to learning pleasant 
and interesting the old lesson of self-control is still inculcated first, last 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 151 

and all the time. Another lesson that is early taught, but not always 
learned, is punctuality. This is a lesson that one needs all through 
life. Diligence, application, concentration, all of these and many more 
traits are necessarily inculcated by the routine of school life. Of course 
the home, too, can teach these things, though less easilj' and naturally. 
But the realization of one's self as a member of the community can 
hardly be acquired in any other way. And this is one of the most important 
lessons a girl can learn. The tendency only to consider one's wishes 
and to feel that one's own idiocracies are of real iinportance is counter- 
acted more easily with boys than with girls from the very nature of 
their lives. The football eleven, the baseball nine, the military companj% 
all teach the lessons of the subordination of the individual to the good 
of the organization of which he is a member. With girls, especially 
in American homes, there is less frequent opportunity for this lesson. 
In school alone can it be easily and lastingly learned. The school has 
other functions besides moral training; or, rather, it secures this character 
development by various means. It remains to consider what intellectual 
pursuits are best adapted to secure these ends. The modern demand 
is for useful education. There is a belief that all subjects of study, so 
long as thej- are carefully taught and diligently pursued, are equally 
valuable for character development. 

The instructors in Hosmer Hall are all graduates of the leading 
colleges, have had ample experience in fitting girls to meet the high 
standards demanded by the college entrance requirements. This ensures 
thorough scholarship in the academic courses, together with the greater 
breadth afforded by the wider scope of these subjects. It is the policy 
of Hosmer Hall always to have among the instructors one or two recent 
graduates from college, in order that their fresher enthusiasm and more 
vivid sympathy with the students' point of view may be combined with 
the greater experience and wiser judgment of those whose student days 
are more remote. Miss Grace Burnham is the assistant principal, with a 
degree of Bachelor of Arts from Washington University; Cora L. Swift, 
French; Alice M. Miller, Latin; H. Carolyn Percy, English, and Florence 
Elizabeth Lange, German, represent the teachers of languages. Alice M. 
Hasey, science; E. Hoefman, home economics; Sadie Ingram, Grace Jencke, 
preparatory department. Senta Goldberg, Harriet Downing-Macklin, Arthur 
Lieber, Emily J. GrifTin, Elizabeth D. Slack, and Mary F. Gold, as the very 
efficient matron, compose the Faculty. The number of resident pupils is 
limited to thirty. It is the intention of the school each year to have the 
household composed of refined and earnest girls. The school is particularly 
strong in its training for college entrance. Graduates are admitted on 



152 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

certificate and have done commendable worlc at Wellesley, Smitli, Vassar, 
Wells, Mount Holyoke, Universities of Michigan, Nebraska, Missouri, 
Washington University and other institutions of similar standing. Instruc- 
tion in instrumental music is given by the Kroeger School of Music. 
The director, Mr. Ernest Kroeger, has an international reputation as a 
teacher, composer and concert pianist, and his assistants are all trained 
musicians. 

Miss McNair has been very successful as the follower of Miss Matthews 
in the management of Hosmer Hall. She was a student of Mary Institute, 
and after graduating there taught three j'ears in Hosiner Hall, and then 
attended Wellesley College. Returning to school after her course at 
Wellesley she again taught at Hosmer until the death of Miss Matthews, 
when she accepted the position of principal, which she has held for 
eleven years. 

Miss McNair was born in St. Louis, the daughter of Charles A. 
McNair and Louise Donohoe, of Glasgow, Mo. The talented musician, 
McNair Ilgenfritz, is her nephew. 

Miss McNair has been the secretary of the Wednesday Club for 
many years, has acted as treasurer and a member of the executive board, 
and also leader of the poetic section of the club when first founded. 
For several years she has served as secretary of the Contemporary Club. 
Miss McNair is quite young to be the principal of such an important 
institution as Hosmer Hall. Her school is well known all over the country, 
and pupils have graduated from this school whose homes are in the 
most distant parts of the country. 

Teaching with Miss McNair is a life work: she puts into it all her 
energy and enthusiasm, which does not fail to awaken much ambitious 
response on the part of her pupils. Miss McNair is of the blonde type, 
fair and commanding in appearance. She is greatly respected and 
appreciated by her pupils and associates. 





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MRS. ELIZABETH AVERY-MERIWETHER 



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NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 153 



MRS. EUZABETH AVERY MERIWETHER 

■RS. MINOR MERIWETHER is one of the most forceful characters 
among women living in this country today. She is the author 
of many books, giving accurate descriptions of historical incidents 
of importance in the South during and after the war which have never 
been presented more trutlifully and vividly. These forcible antl impressive 
stories place her among the foremost of realistic writers. Her plots 
are skillfully conceived and developed, told with remarkable vigor, and 
are true pictures of conditions that are passing away, making her books 
important additions to the literature of old Southern life. 

For over sixty years she has been a steady contributor to the leading 
newspapers and periodicals of this country. 

Her "Travel Letters" have caused much favorable comment and 
interest, and discussions and arguments on political, literary, sociolog- 
ical and every other vital topic of the times, through the columns of 
the papers, have given her a well-deserved international reputation. 

As a lecturer she holds the distinction of being the first woman to 
speak from the platform in the State of Tennessee. With Susan B. 
Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other women in the pioneer field, 
advocating equal rights for women, she has lectured all through New 
England, Texas and other States. The comments made by the press all 
over the country about Mrs. Meriwether as a speaker were always in 
highest terms — "her natural oratory, keen sarcasm, sparkling wit, earnest 
and interesting style, glowing eloquence, etc.," are some of the terms 
used to express her manner of delivery and the enthusiasm she awakened. 

The title of one of the books of which she is the author is "Facts 
and Falsehoods Concerning the War of the South of 1861 and 1865," 
under a pen name — George Edmonds — which was published in 1904. 
This Mrs. Meriwether considers the most valuable book that she ever 
wrote or could write, because in it she tells the truth about historical 
events. She says: "If you read this book you will know more about 
Lincoln than you ever dreamed of." 

In 1877 Mrs. Meriwether wrote a little book entitled "Ku-KIux Klan; 
or, the Carpet-bagger in New Orleans." An Englishman, then in Memphis, 
sent a copy of this book to London to the editor of the "Kensington News," 
who gave it a very complimentary notice, telling her that if she would 
write a novel and put as much humor and pathos in it as she had put 
in the little book, "Ku-Klux Klan," he would introduce her to an English 



154 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

publisher who would put it out. She soon had a novel titled "The Master 
of Red Leaf" ready, and sent it off to London, where the publishers 
issued a splendid set of three volumes, gilt-edge, etc. An American 
firm got out a cheaper edition in one volume, paper-bound. This book 
was sold in Memphis at the rate of 100 copies a week. 

"The Sowing of the Swords," in 1910; "My First and Last Love," 
and "Black and White," 1883, are some of her other stories. Mrs. 
Meriwether has been writing continuously, and is now busj^ on her 
"Recollections of a Long Life," which will be published shortly. 

Elizabeth Avery was born in Bolivar, Tenn., in January, 1824. Her 
parents moved to Memphis when she was nine years old. She attended 
school there in a little one-story building, where the principal was teacher 
and janitor, until twelve years old. After that age her information and 
knowledge was gained from books and papers, with her father's assistance. 
With a practical mind and excellent memory she stored up a splendid 
basis for her future line of literary and lecture work. Now, in her 
ninetieth year, Mrs. Meriwether reads often until midnight; has all of 
her teeth perfectly sound; is just as interesting as ever in conversation, 
and spends the greater part of her time reading and writing, having 
changed none of her early habits, except that she does not make addresses 
in public. 

Mrs. Meriwether's father was a physician — Nathan Avery, of New 
York; her mother, Rebecca Rivers, belonged to one of the old families 
of Virginia. Her father's ancestors came over with Penn — the founder 
of Pennsylvania — and were Quakers. After going South he joined the 
Methodist Church, to which Mrs. Meriwether still belongs. She amusingly 
relates that her own father said grace three times a day before meals, 
but her Grandfather Rivers said he didn't believe the Lord wanted to 
be bothered with hearing the same thing so often, so no one was surprised 
when one day he called the family out to the smokehouse, where the 
winter's stock of hams and bacon had been cured, and provisions stored 
for the year, asking them to join him in saying grace over everything 
at once for the w'hole year. 

Mrs. Meriwether's parents died when she was a young girl, and she, 
with two sisters, made their home with their brother, William Thomas 
Avery, remaining in the old home in Memphis until they married. These 
two sisters are still living: one in California, Mrs. Amanda Trezevant, four 
years younger, and Mrs. Estelle Lamb, of Memphis, six years younger 
than Mrs. Meriwether. 

In 1852 she was married to Mr. Minor Meriwether, of Kentucky, who 
later in life became a lawyer, but at that time was a civil engineer. A 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 155 

few years after they were married her husband enlisted in the Con- 
federate Army; he entered as a private and came out a colonel. Service 
soon made his one suit of clothes ragged and worn, and just when his 
loyal wife was planning to send him a new one. Gen. Sherman banished 
her from Memphis. With her two little children she was ordered to 
leave her house, being forced to "pack up and go" without warning. Her 
husband was then with Price's army at Holly Springs. The military 
rules would not permit an)' cloth which could be made up for the Southern 
soldiers to go South, but a dear friend smuggled across the lines a gray 
civilian suit, which, after much ripping, and crying and sewing she 
finally made into a military coat that her husband did not know had 
not been made by a tailor. On returning to Memphis the military rules 
were that no returned rebel otlicer should wear his militarj- coat on 
the street, but after explaining that he had returned from the war utterly 
penniless, Mr. Meriwether was permitted to wear it only after the brass 
buttons were removed. After he was able to buy what he needed Mrs. 
Meriwether sewed the brass buttons on again," and now the same coat 
is preserved in a large glass case which stands at the head of the stairs 
in her very interesting home. 

After the war they went back to Memphis, residing there until the 
yellow fever broke out. Then, coming to St. Louis, built the house 
in which Mr. Minor Meriwether died in 1910, and in which Mrs. Meri- 
wether, with her son, Lee, and his wife, still lives. Mr. Lee Meriwether, 
like his father, is an attorney-at-law. He is well known as the author 
of six books — "A Tramp Trip — How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a 
Day," published in 1887. This book is regarded as an authority on the 
subject. Then followed, "The Tramp at Home," 1890; "Afloat and 
Ashore on the Mediterranean," 1892; "Miss Chunk," 1899; "A Lord's 
Courtship," 1900, and "Seeing Europe by Automobile," 1911, which was 
written just twenty-five years after the first book. Mr. Meriwether's 
wife was Miss Jessie M. Gair, of Missouri. 

After the war was over and her children were growing up, Mrs. 
Meriwether, realizing the many social evils which existed, became inter- 
ested in the question of equal rights for women; she wanted women 
to have the opportunity to vote so they might assist in correcting these 
evils, believing that if women had suffrage there would be universal 
peace, and a complete eradication of the social evil. 

Mrs. Meriwether looks upon Susan B. Anthony as the "Moses" of 
the cause of equal rights and woman suffrage. "It was she who originated 
the movement in the East — she was a grand and noble woman. Instead 
of being the ugly, scrawny old woman that the newspapers called hei". 



156 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

she was attractive, had enough flesh to make her shapely, and was a 
smart, good and sensible woman." In 1881 Mrs. Meriwether began her 
lecture tour with Susan B. Anthony through the New England States 
where conventions were being held. Mrs. Anthony wanted her to speak 
at these places because she was a Southern woman. As illustrative of 
her methods of lecturing she carried with her two cartoons, four feet 
by four feet, which she sketched and painted herself. The men 
who hated and scorned equal rights declared that no one but an ugly 
old maid would want to vote, one who could not secure a husband, and 
should a married woman advocate equal rights she must necessarily be 
a coarse, rough termagant, who had a feeble-minded, no-account husband. 
She entered the hall with these cartoons rolled up, and beginning to 
speak unrolled the old maid's picture, and said, "This is the picture 
of the woman who failed to get a husband — now in this room is one 
of our women who has failed to get a husband (pointing to a handsome 
girl of nineteen), she wants to vote, and this is her picture." The com- 
parison, of course, brought shouts of laughter. Then, unrolling the 
second cartoon, she explained that it was one of herself, the cartoon 
represented a rough, coarse woman holding a little scared man under 
her arm, with his legs dangling, which she said was her husband, although 
the artist didn't get a good likeness of him, as he was six feet tall. 

At the time Mrs. Meriwether made those addresses she was a slender, 
vivacious, attractive young woman, and after comparing her with the 
cartoon which she said was of herself there was a general roar of laughter, 
clapping of hands, etc. After putting the audience in a good humor 
she would deliver the lecture which she had in store for them. The 
same cartoons are hanging on the wall of her living room now and 
furnish the material for many interesting anecdotes which she relates 
with much satisfaction. 

The first time Mrs. Meriwether lectured in this State on "equal rights" 
she received many anonymous letters; in some she was denounced as 
being everything but a good wife and mother. When she made her first 
public speech in Tennessee she went to the editor of the paper and 
wanted him to make the announcement, but he said: "You will have 
to get the permission of your husband," which, of course, was readily 
granted; however, Mr. Meriwether expressed his fear that she might 
become stage-struck, and her son — Lee — a little fellow ten years old, who 
was lying on the floor, interrupted, "Don't you believe it — mother will 
go through; she won't get stage struck." The editor, still hoping to dis- 
courage her, said people would talk about her. She answered: "They 
can't say I am not a good wife and mother, or that I get drunk." 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I 8 157 

On the night of the lecture, the hall was crowded to overflowing; 
she made a very successful address. Her brother, being so afraid she 
would fail, did not have the courage to attend. 

Mrs. Meriwether has alwaj's been an ardent and active supporter of 
the cause of temperance, delivering many addresses in different parts of 
the country in connection with her suffrage work. 

Returning to Memphis after her lecture tour, Mrs. Meriwether became 
the editor of a newspaper, "The Tablet." Horace Greeley came to 
Memphis, making a speech on "Self-Made Men," about that time. Mrs. 
Meriwetiier wrote an article whicli she pubHshed in her paper about it 
— a criticism — a humorous one. She sent a copy of the paper to Horace 
Greeley, who was the editor of the "New York Tribune," wanting to 
exchange with him. But he said his exchange list was so long he 
could not do so, making the suggestion that if she would advertise his 
paper in "The Tablet" he would send it to her for a year. She replied 
that if he would print the criticism she had written of him in his paper, 
she would do so, and send him "The Tablet" for a j^ear. He agreed, and 
the "Tribune" was sent her for many years. 

Mrs. Meriwether spends several hours each day writing on her 
"Memoirs," which cover so manj% many years of active life in so many 
Hues of work, and extending over a period of such importance in the 
history of the country, that it must necessarily prove an entertaining, 
instructive and valuable addition to every library. 



158 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 



M' 



MRS. PHILIP NORTH MOORE 

■RS. PHILIP NORTH MOORE has achieved an international reputa- 
tion as president of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, 
because she has proved herself a wise leader, a sound parliamen- 
tarian and an excellent executive. There are one million members in the 
federation. In her four years of ofiice she has traveled more than seventy 
thousand miles and visited eighty principal cities and forty-one States on 
the business of this organization. Her term of office expired June 12, 
1912. 

Rockford, 111., was her birthplace, where she attended the public 
school until 1870, and then entered Vassar College, taking a full mathe- 
matical and scientific course, graduating in 1873. Returning to Rockford 
she taught botany and French in the college there for two years. From 
1876-79 the jears were spent in traveling and studying in Germany, 
France, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Italy and England, making a specialty 
of the study of languages. 

In November, 1879, shortly after her return to Rockford, she was 
married to Mr. Philip North Moore, a mining engineer and consulting 
geologist. He was born in Indiana and was a graduate of Miami University 
and the Columbia School of Mines. Since their marriage they have 
resided in Colorado, Kentucky and Missouri. During these years she has 
traveled extensively with her husband in the United States and Mexico. 
His interests, as consulting engineer of the different mining companies 
which he represents, made it necessarj' from time to time to ^'isit these 
places and Mrs. Moore has always accompanied him. 

Mrs. Moore has been actively connected with the management of the 
St. Louis Training School for Nurses. She is a member of the Board 
of Directors of the Provident Association, and chairman of their district 
nurse work from its inception. 

Of the St. Louis School of Philanthropy she is vice-president, and is 
also interested in its research work under the "Sage Foundation." She 
is a charter member of the Wednesday Club and later served as president 
and director from 1892-96. 

From 1901-05 she was president of the Missouri Federation. This 
put her in line for an office in the General Federation of Women's Clubs, 
of which she became first vice-president in 1904, and in 1908, at the 
Biennial meeting in Boston, president, succeeding Mrs. Sarah Piatt 
Decker, of Denver. Recently Mrs. Decker died and Mrs. Moore, during 




KAJfWARA PHOTO 



MRS. PHILIP NORTH MOORE 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 159 

the latter part of her administration, suggested that the endowment fund 
be used for a Decker Memorial, which was agreed upon. 

Interested in the musical growth of the city, she assisted in the 
formation of the Musical Club, which should bring to St. Louis the very 
best artists in every line, and is, at the same time, loyally devoting much 
of her time to the larger musical organization, the St. Louis Symphony 
Society, in which she is an active worker. 

Mrs. Moore was president of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae 
from 1903-07, and one of the three alumnae trustees of Vassar College. 

By the Board of Lady Managers of the Louisiana Purchase Exposi- 
tion in 1903, she was appointed a member of the Superior Jury, in which 
International Jury of Awards the right of membersliip was given for 
the first time to a representative of women. 

Mrs. Moore has been selected as one of a committee of one hundred, 
of which Mrs. John Hays Hammond is the chairman, for the Women's 
Titanic Memorial Fund. 

During her presidency of the federation, Mrs. Moore acted as foreign 
correspondent, and now, as chairman of that committee, still holds this 
office. For her this is a delightful task. The knowledge of languages, 
gained during her years of study abroad in that particular direction, has 
been of the greatest assistance. The club has quite a list of honorary 
members living in all parts of the world. 

This honor has been extended to these women on account of the 
great work accomplished in their country along philanthropic, educa- 
tional and literary lines. Among them are: 

Baroness Bertha van Suttner, one of the members of the International 
Peace Conference, of Vienna; Lady Aberdeen, of Ireland; Countess de 
Denterghem, Dame d'Honneur de sa Majestic, Belgium; Princess Nagli, 
honorary president of the Alliance of Occidental and Oriental Women 
of Egj-pt; Fraulein Anna Simons, of the Royal Kunstgewerbe Schule, 
Germany; Miss E. C. Jones, mistress of Girton College, Cambridge, 
England; Signora Fanny Sampini Salazar, Italy; Countess Ayako-Okuma, 
Tokyo, Japan; Mrs. William Tod Helmuth, New York, and others in 
the principal cities of the world. 

Of course, Mrs. Moore's work with the General Federation has been her 
most absorbing interest. In the valedictory address delivered in San 
Francisco at the expiration of her term of office, she "believed the federa- 
tion to be united as never before, that the women had learned to know 
each other and work together wonderfully well. The new officers would 
hold to all that has been good in the past and give a new outlook to the 



160 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 

future, and that the great task of this generation is to live down the 
generation that still lags behind the times." 

About the work that has been accomplished — the country at large 
has the club women to thank for the pure food laws, the preservation 
of Niagara Falls from the greed of power companies, the passage of 
the Weeks bill for the conservation of forest lands, and much legislation 
looking to the welfare of women and children. Mrs. Moore urges that 
in all large cities women police should be appointed to super\ise the 
conduct of young girls in dance halls and other public places. 

The advice given to the club for the future by her was that women 
address themselves particularly to international and industrial peace, 
regulation of the press and drama, education, inspection of factories, and 
other estabhshments in which women are emploj'ed, and a closer watch 
on legislation affecting social and civil life. It was flattering to the 
members to know that nearly every other national organization had 
come to seek the co-operation of their federation. 

Mrs. Moore has been a good leader, and actively progressive in raising 
the standard of the work of the clubs throughout the country, until the 
federation has become, through its representatives, a great power. 

The organization has enlarged and broadened the scope of the work 
of the local clubs. Most of these originally had no other object in 
view than literary improvement and social recreation. But of late years 
a great change has taken place in the relation of woman's influence to 
questions of a public nature. New problems, vitally affecting the con- 
dition and welfare of the masses, have arisen, and many of them are of 
a character to especially appeal to the interest and support of women. 
There has never been an era where matters of this kind have been so 
prominently presented. Existing evils and the methods of modifying 
and eradicating them have called forth a wide and earnest discussion 
that has been taken up by nearly all of the local clubs. 

The agitation has necessarily impressed and influenced the representa- 
tives of these clubs in the federation, and given that body a stimulus 
toward united effort to properly solve problems of reform — social and 
pohtical. And in turn each advanced stand taken by the federation has 
reacted on the various branches. 

What of the consequence? Who can estimate the vast influence and 
power for good to be accomplished by this army of one million earnest 
women? The ideals of every member are of the highest type. They 
are all actuated by an exalted desire to accomplish good. 

They study the best methods for philanthropic labor, and strive to 
devise means for the uplifting of the toiling masses. It is not assuming 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O U I S 161 

too much to say that the federation is one of the largest and most forceful 
organizations for the improvement of social conditions. They have 
already exercised a healthy and beneficial influence on legislation. State 
and National, and will continue to strengthen that influence as the years 
goby. 

Mrs. Philip N. Moore is a woman of versatile ability. Under her 
leadership she unobtrusively invigorated every department. Her power 
is the kind that demands a strong and lasting appreciation. She guides 
and directs with a grace that is hard to define. Above all, she is very 
conservative — her demands are made with quiet dignity and grace. 

Harmonious features and gray eyes, that are rarely seen in a woman, 
and onl}^ sometimes in a man, penetrating and keen, veiled with diplomacy 
and kindliness, together with a fine coloring, make Mrs. Moore an 
unusually attractive woman. 

During the last conference in San Francisco a writer on a daily paper, 
describing the general characteristics and appearance of those assembled 
and Mrs. Moore in particular, said: 

"It was noticeable, when the women were gathered, that there were 
so many handsome and silvered coiffures where the leaders were 
grouped, and that every woman among them was wearing her years 
with dignity and grace. They were for the most part women of no 
particular age, whose years one does not bother to speculate upon — 
whose maturity gave them poise, patience, restraint and the experience 
that saves from fiasco. 

"Mrs. Philip Moore was an example — frankly middle-aged, with a 
distinguished presence, the utter absence of any attempt to attain a more 
youthful air than becomingly belongs to her. The fresh, calm, astute 
face, the readiness, tact, decision and nicely gauged cordiality all belong 
to her." 

Mrs. Moore's parents were American born, although her mother was 
of French descent — Elizabeth Benedict, a descendant of the Huguenots — 
and her father came from Wales. His name was Seeley Perry. She 
has two children, a son. Perry North Moore, who is a mining engineer 
and in business with his father, and a daughter, Elizabeth, in Montreal, 
in charge of the Child's Welfare Exhibit of that city. Miss Moore has 
made extensive studies of the milk supply of St. Louis in the Russell 
Sage research work, and that examination is the basis of the recommenda- 
tions which are being given for the milk supply of St. Louis. She is a 
graduate of Vassar College, the alma mater of her mother. 



162 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MISS BESSIE MORSE 

ORATORY is one of the greatest of natural gifts. Its powerful influ- 
ence has always been fully recognized, and it is still one of the 
main factors in swaying the destiny of nations. 

Before the general use of newspapers the principal means of reach- 
ing the masses was from the platform, and the far-reaching influence 
for good brought to bear, at all times, from the pulpit and the forum 
can not be computed. 

The exercise of eloquence in order to please or persuade is oratory, 
and schools for teaching elocution, which is the proper use of the voice 
and gesture in public speaking or reading, have always existed for the 
development of this talent. 

The Morse School of Expression leaches elocution, oratory, literature, 
dramatic art, physical culture, and aesthetic dancing. The method adopted 
by Miss Morse, the principal, who is also a well-known platform lecturer, 
is that of natural expression. The central idea is the training of the 
mind, body and voice at the same time. When the voice is thoroughly 
trained it responds perfectly to every thought, and the body likewise, so 
that there is perfect harmonj'. 

Miss Morse endeavors to make her pupils understand that there is 
science in the work, just like in all other great arts. 

It is her aim to make thorough artists of them. The influence of 
the school is calculated to develop many of the higher faculties, as it 
brings the students necessarily in close association with the standard 
works of eminent writers. Miss Morse gives a great deal of attention 
to each pupil's study of literature in the choice of selection for reper- 
toires. Her teaching is done through the simplest methods possible — 
because the great aim is simplicity in everything in the form of expression. 
There is a reason for every thing we do, and back of all these reasons 
our thoughts must be clearly defined — then natural expression will follow. 
Better still than the old saying, "To see oursel's as ithers see us!", would 
be to hear oursel's as ithers hear us. 

A great Delsarte principle is "from within-outward," and that is the 
main idea. The proper training of the body and voice until they respond 
perfectly to the mind will bring the natural expression. For instance, 
one who can not read aloud for some time without tiring, should take 
the training of the speaking voice, which includes correct breathing, and 
the right placing and directing of tones, until every vestige of strain is 
taken away from the throat. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS BESSIE MORSE 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I 8 163 

This is of great assistance to teachers and others engaged in public 
work, and should be more generally taken up even by those who are 
not; everyone should know how to handle the speaking voice correctly. 
Deep breathing opens the vocal chords fully, the perfect relaxation of 
tlie jaw relaxes the vocal chords, and only then follows the right direction 
of the tones, and those are the three important things, breathing, relaxing 
of the jaw, and the proper direction of the tone; these will not only 
beautify and enrich the voice, but strengthen the throat by leaving it 
perfectly free from undue effort. 

It is remarkable how poorly developed generally is the power of 
expression in language. Anyone who wishes to observe how little is 
kno\vn of the art let him go into a courtroom and see the difficulty 
encountered in getting witnesses — who are not confined to any class, 
but gathered from all walks of life — to express themselves clearly in 
regard to the known facts of a case. As a usual thing, it begins by the 
attorney's saying, "Speak louder and slower — we can not understand j'ou," 
and this is supplemented by the judge admonisliing the witness on the 
stand to "speak plainer — we can not understand you." 

Again very few possess the faculty of reading correctly and distinctly 
from book or paper. One would suppose that there is no cultivation in 
the art of reading aloud; few have intonation, accentuation or clearness 
of pronunciation. If it is taught at all in the schools, it is not taught 
thoroughly, or in some way this art is neglected. Reading aloud correctly 
is one of the finest accomplishments and the fewest number can do it 
because the voice has had no rational training. This should be taught 
in a separate department in every school — this art of expression — whereas 
the development of that faculty is left almost altogether to those aspiring 
to the stage, and they are not usually adepts because they have not 
been made to understand that simplicity is the first necessity. It is a 
notable fact that not one person in a hundred pronounces clearly and 
properly; their words are incoherently mumbled, and the end syllables 
are frequently indistinct. 

The moment one is discovered having the capacity of reading clearly 
and intelligently we hear the exclamation, "He ought to go on the stage." 
A good-speaking voice is a rarity, instead of a universal accomplishment. 
Most all children are urged to take music lessons, regardless of talent, 
but rarely an extra efTort is made for their studying the art of expression. 
The English language, though difficult to handle, can be made, when 
rightly spoken, the most melodious. 

In this country there is a dearth of good conversationalists, and this 
can be attributed to the lack of time given to the study of the method 



164 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

and manner of expression. Many have the ideas, but have not developed 
or studied how to express them clearly, concisely and forcibly. College 
students have the privilege of a course in elocution, but how many are 
there who ever study the art after finishing the grammar course, or 
enter upon the active duties of life? 

Miss Morse has undertaken a great work, and has had a notable and 
deserved success. It is due, in a great measure, to her thorough under- 
standing of its requirements and to her admirable personality, also her 
zeal in, and devotion to, her profession. 

Among the graduates Miss Morse has sent out from her school who 
are distinguisliing themselves are: Miss Maud W. Barnes, director of 
the Department of Expression in Ouachita College, Arkadelphia, Ark., 
one of the largest seminaries in that State; Valerine Dunn, who went first 
with the Suburban Stock Company, and now is a director of the Depart- 
ment of expression in the Visitation Convent of Mobile, Ala.; Miss Mina 
Pearl Finger of Marissa, 111., who occupies the same position for the 
Lindenwood College, St. Charles, Mo.; Eunice Green, connected with the 
Sacred Heart Convent in St. Charles, where she is the director of phj'sical 
culture; Naomi Weston Childers, rapidly gaining success as the ingenue 
in the "Madame X" Company, having been engaged by Henry W. Savage; 
Geraldine Albert, teacher of Expression in the Academy of the Visitation, 
St. Louis; Madeline McNabb, studying in Boston and making a reputation 
in that city and vicinity; Mrs. Caroline Delano Johnson, of St. Louis. 

Miss Morse has spent much time in developing her talent. She 
attended a country school until thirteen years old, then the De Soto High 
School, the Kirksville Normal School, Soper School of Oratory in Chicago, 
and schools of that kind in Boston and New York. She has been untiring 
in the study of oratory and expression. In New York some time was spent 
in study under the principal of the American Academy of Dramatic Art, 
and since then she has visited every year in Boston and Chicago for the 
purpose of getting new ideas. 

When Miss Morse began teaching she conducted private classes in her 
studio for five years. Before that she traveled under the management of 
a lyceum bureau as a reader, touring the North, South and West under 
their auspices, also giving private recitals during that tiine. For ten years 
Miss Morse has given lecture recitals. 

In these, as illustrative of her style, if she gives a lecture on Shake- 
speare, she will give a sketch of his life and his dranfias, then intersperse 
the lecture with readings from the different plays as she refers to them. 

This is done in drawing rooms or public halls, just as her patrons 
demand. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 165 

Miss Morse was always, as a child, attracted to elocutionary work, 
but her mother decided she was to be a musician — that is one of the 
benefits, at times, of a mother selecting a career for a child — it arouses the 
determination to follow natural inclinations and do something for which 
it is often better fitted. 

Miss Morse thought, when a little girl listening to traveling elocu- 
tionists, nothing could be more delightful than their rendition of "Curfew 
Shall Not Ring Tonight" and "Punch in the Presence of the Passenger." 
When she grew older and was sent to the Kirksville Normal School, the 
music-lesson money, given her by her mother, was used for a course in 
elocution. Returning home the next spring she could recite two "pieces" 
for what should have represented a year in music. One was "Searching 
for the Slain." Her mother's surprise can be imagined. Later she 
received great assistance from Miss Marion Lowell, of Washington City, 
who was a pupU of the celebrated Steele Mackaye, an exponent of Delsarte, 
and to whom she owes much for her success. 

Miss Morse's school is the only one of its kind conducted by a woman 
in St. Louis, and her able and painstaking work in establishing this much- 
needed department of education is not appreciated as much as it should be, 
though her school has met with remarkable success. 



166 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MRS. ALICE CURTICE-MOYER 

MRS. ALICE CURTICE-MOYER was born in Du Quoin, Hlinois. 
Wliile still a baby she was taken by her parents to Southwest 
Missouri, where they were pioneers in Dallas County. Some 
of her first recollections are of the Missouri homestead, and as she says in 
her book "A Romance of the Road" — "of a sturdy young father who 
cleared and tilled the soil, making what use he could of liis Eastern 
education by teaching the district school in the winter, and of a pretty 
young mother, who was never too busy to put on a clean collar (of her 
own crocheting) when he was expected from the field." The "Romance 
of the Road" is a bright, entertaining, good book, full of practical knowl- 
edge and every-day events which are made so heartfelt and interesting 
that one feels the better for having read it. 

Mrs. Moj'er is the eldest of six children; five were born in Missouri; her 
brother, two and a half years j'ounger, was her playmate on the homestead 
where they lived until she was fifteen years old, when her parents moved 
into the county seat so their children could have better educational advan- 
tages, but even there they were meagre and the private instruction of her 
father aided her more than all the schooling. 

Life on the homestead taught her resourcefulness, and how to endure 
discomforts, for they were pioneer children and faced many hardships. 
Her father, Charles L. Curtice, is a New Yorker by birth, but was in the 
Sixth Illinois Cavalry, during the Civil War, and has a service of four 
years and seven months to his credit. Her mother was Nancy Elizabeth 
Tinsley, of Tennessee, whose father, of English ancestry, was a Virginian. 

Through her father she is related to the Wing familjs his mother was 
Miriam Wing, of Hoosick, N. Y. Through a daughter of Rev. Stephen 
Bachelder (or Bachelor), Deborah (wife of Rev. John Wing), she can 
trace her ancestry back to this famous preacher and reformer, who 
was vicar of Whersvell, Hants, England, before coming to Ainerica. By 
reason of her ancestral connection from the Rev. Stephen Bachelder (or 
Bachelor), she is eligible to membership in the Colonial Dames, and 
through David Wing, a Quaker of Providence, who served in the War 
of the Revolution as an enlisted soldier in Col. John Blair's regiment, 
Albany County Militia, she is eligible to membership in the D. A. R. 
Mrs. Moyer shares ancestral claims on the Rev. Bachelor with Daniel 
Webster, J. G. Whittier and other writers. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. ALICE CURTICE-MOYER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L O U I S 167 

The "Wing Family of America" was the first familj' of this county to 
incorporate, and every two years tliey liold a reunion wliich brings many 
of the estimated 100,000 relatives to the family camp fires. Mr. T. G. 
Wing, president of the Gorman Paint Coinpany, of which firm Mrs. 
Mover is secretary and treasurer, is a prominent St. Louis member of the 
Wing Family, Inc. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, the famous playwright, is a 
member of the English branch of the Wing family. 

While her children were quite small, a little daughter five, and a son 
twenty months younger, it became necessary for Mrs. Moyer to support 
her family. She took the surest way into the business world for a woman, 
that of stenographer, and came to St. Louis from El Paso, Texas, to take 
up this study. At the end of ten weeks she took a position for a year and 
a half in that capacity, and then moved to Kansas, where she became cor- 
respondent for a manufacturing concern. Always keeping her children 
with her, she studied with them and sewed for them at night after office 
hours. In addition to this she wrote stories for a juvenile paper, and now 
and then for magazines and newspapers. She says, as Sir Walter Raleigh 
said of himself, "I can toil terribly." 

After five years in Kansas, the threat of a nervous breakdown sent her 
on the road as a commercial traveler, a position which she held for five 
years. During this period, her children made their home with their 
grandparents, who still live where Mrs. Moyer spent her girlhood days, 
in Buffalo, Dallas County. Witli her health restored by the road work, 
she again held office positions as correspondent, department manager, 
district manager, and instructor for traveling forces in Kansas City, 
Chicago, and Birmingham, coming to St. Louis in February, 1913, to be 
secretary and treasurer of the Gorman Paint Companj% a position that she 
now holds. After seventeen years of business experience, Mrs. Moyer 
says that the world of business is not at all a bad place for a woman, and 
that no woman can know just how much she can accomplish until, for 
some reason, she must try. Necessity usually takes precedence in bring- 
ing out any latent power. She has been a devoted mother; her daughter, 
Selma, is in Washington University, and the son, Charles, in Chicago in a 
large mail order business house, where he holds a responsible position and 
is securing some excellent business training. 

Mrs. Moyer's ideal of a happy life is that set forth in a conversation 
between two of the characters of her book, "A Romance of the Road," 
when the finality of earthly happiness is summed up in this way: "The 
surest way to happiness is work; and the surest way to keep it after finding 
it is work; work we like so much that it is better than play — the work that 



168 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I S 



brings out the very best in us and enables us to behold and gradually 
approach our ideals — the sort of work that keeps us safe and sane and 
satisfied." This she explains does not mean that any of us always do the 
work we care for most, but we can at least keep the aim before us, and 
that is worth while. The profits of this book Mrs. Moyer is giving to 
the cause of woman suffrage. It is not a suffrage story, however, and 
only one character in any way refers to woman's rights, when she says: 
"K I had the gift of some great educational or poHtical right, and it was 
in my power to confer it upon men, they wouldn't even have to ask me 
for it. They wouldn't have to wear themselves out petitioning me to 
give them something that is no more mine than theirs." 

Mrs. Moyer has recently been selected as the St. Louis member of 
the State SulTrage Press Committee, and has arranged her business affairs 
so that she can give her time to the suffrage work in Missouri until after 
election, next November, and during this period will be at St. Louis 
suffrage headquarters. 




GERHARD SISTERS PHOTO 



DAISY E. NIRDLINGER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 169 



DAISY E. NIRDLINGER 

NO woman in St. Louis holds a position similar to that of Miss 
NirfUinger. Women who complain that no place has been made 
for them in the business world might benefit by her experience. 
Miss Nirdlinger's business career began about eleven years ago as a 
solicitor for a well-known advertising companj'. After two years she 
accepted the position of advertising manager of the Mercantile Trust 
Company, and while with this company founded and edited the first 
trust company monthly magazine, "The Mercantile." At the end of a 
year she purchased an interest in and was made secretary and treasurer 
of the Fisher-Steinbruegge Advertising Company, which was incorporated 
about ten years ago, with thi'ee officers and four employes. Today the 
organization has twenty-five people employed, and is the only advertising 
agency in St. Louis that, under one roof, can produce copy, designing, 
engraving and printing for every class of advertising. Miss Nirdlinger's 
work consists of calling upon the St. Louis manufacturers, wholesalers, 
and retailers, in the capacity of an advertising counselor. If they are 
national advertisers or have a product that can be profitably advertised to 
the consumer, she talks Agency service — that is, the planning and placing 
of the copy in newspapers, magazines, farm papers, or other mediums, as 
the case may require. If they are users of catalogues, booklets, circulars, 
and special advertising literature, she can execute that part of the work per- 
fectly. Many of the largest commercial institutions find it impossible to 
give the time to handling the manj' details that the issuing of even a small 
catalogue demands; and they are, therefore, very willing to turn this part 
of the work over to a reputable concern, reserving the right to 0. K. the 
designs and proofs. With the modern equipment of her company. Miss 
Nirdlinger can handle a simple envelope and enclosure printed in one color, 
or an elaborate trade catalogue of three hundred pages. She has arranged 
and delivered complete catalogues, illustrating men's and women's fash- 
ions, shoes, stoves, machinery, fire-brick, toys, cliinaware, jewelry, automo- 
biles and beautif uUv designed booklets on numerous subjects. She wUl take 
the articles to be featured in a booklet, and turn over to the customer a 
complete book, handling the copy, designing, engraving, inserting in 
envelopes and mailing. Notwithstanding the great amount of work she 
has done in the business world, she is the author and has had published 
two books for children — "Althea" and "Dear Friends." The former was 
adopted by the Commissioners of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition as 
the oflicial souvenir for young people. Miss Nirdlinger is now at work on 



170 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

the third and last of the "Althea" series, "The Alvoyds," which will be 
published about Easter time of 1914. She attributes her success to per- 
severance and an honest desire to give real service, a big element that is 
seldom figured on the cost ticket. She believes that "All's right with the 
world if you're right with it," and thinks a good motto for anyone enter- 
ing business life, is "If at first j'ou don't succeed — work, and then work 
some more." 

Miss Nirdlinger is giving practicallj' all of her spare time to Social 
Settlement enterprises. At the Guardian Angel Culture Club, Tenth and 
Menard Streets, she has for two years been conducting a business women's 
literary class. Every memiber is a young woman earning her living, and 
the motto of the class is "Let me live by the side of the road and be a friend 
to man." Or, in plainer words, each young girl constitutes herself a good 
Samaritan to encourage, and better, if possible, the life of everyone cross- 
ing her path. 

At the Methodist Episcopal Home, 4310 Morgan Street, an honor 
home for girls, another of the new-day institutions. Miss Nirdlinger con- 
ducts a weeklj' class in wholesome, good reading, hoping to instill into 
the hearts of the young people who have had so few chances for proper 
upbringing the idea that to every good woman the world opens wide its 
doors, and to every bad woman the same world closes its doors. The 
Methodist Episcopal Home project is the beginning of a new system 
for the lending of a helping hand to the helpless when they need it most. 

Miss Nirdlinger is the daughter of Maximillian Nirdlinger, a writer 
and inventor of national repute. Her mother was Miss Julia Marie Myer- 
son, of St. Louis. Miss Nirdlinger received a convent school education in 
Milwaukee, and took a post-graduate course in Literature at Drexel Insti- 
tute, Philadelphia. Her birthplace was Ft. Wayne, Indiana, where her 
paternal grandfather was one of the first settlers and the city's most noted 
philanthropist. She is one of the founders of the Papyrus Club, one of 
the earliest writers' clubs in St. Louis, and is also a member of the Vortex 
Club. The purpose of this organization is the mutual advancement and 
benefit of the business trade or profession of its members, bj^ trading or 
doing business, one with the other, in order to develop a close comradeship. 
Small in stature, very energetic and frank, with a captivating voice. Miss 
Nirdlinger is considered a very important member of her firm. 




GERHARD SISTERS PHOTO 



MRS. ANNIE LAURIE Y. ORFF 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 171 



MRS. ANNIE LAURIE Y. ORFF 

THE little red railway guide called "Time," which was edited by Mrs. 
Annie Laurie Y. Orfl" about twenty years ago, was known from 
Maine to California among the railroad men, especially in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley, and linked witli it in the memory of many is the face and 
name of the handsome, enterprising woman who was the editor and 
business manager of this little book, and who has since made a success 
in the larger publislung field of St. Louis. 

This railway guide was published before the folders now supplied by 
the railroad companies, and gave a correct time-table of the different 
roads, subject to monthly revision. 

Mrs. Orft' had learned to correct railroad time in the office of the 
Vandalia Line. Her optimistic temperament won the hearts of her co- 
workers and she was soon calling out columns of figures with such 
accuracy and dispatch that she was termed an expert time corrector. 

But no routine work could ever be congenial to one of her energetic 
disposition, and she quickly saw the possibilities of a railway guide 
indorsed by all the roads. Advertisements were inserted in this booklet — 
the railroads subscribing for thousands of copies for general distribution. 

From office to ofiice she went gathering the changes necessary to keep 
proper time in the railway guide, making friends of the officials by her 
business-like and gracious manner, and she states with pride that in each 
and every office she was offered a permanent position; but the booklet, 
with its advertising advantages, was far more profitable, netting her an 
income annually of .$7,000 for many years. 

Mrs. Orff made this book a success by sheer tact and energy. It was 
her strong personality that drew the business. 

When she first began to publish her railway guide, men were not 
accustomed to having a woman step into their private offices to solicit 
business, but with ready wit and finesse she was granted interviews which 
usually resulted in obtaining a contract for subscriptions or advertising, 
and often both. 

"Time" was small in size — in fact, a pocket edition which could readily 
be carried and used as a handy reference by the traveling public. In 
fourteen months after taking cfTarge Mrs. Orft' found herself the sole 
owner of the publication, and had also found her vocation. That the 
larger publishing field should have attracted her goes without saying, so 
when the railroads printed their own folders, Mrs. Orff originated the idea 
of issuing a magazine which would be devoted to the interests of women, 
and in April, 1890, began preparations to publish the "Chaperone," a full- 



172 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

size magazine artistically' illustrated, and filled with matters of general 
interest to women as well as stories by the leading fiction writers of the day. 

Fashion and domestic affairs, besides a fund of general information 
on interesting topics, quicklj' made it a favorite in the family circle, and 
well received by literary critics. For fourteen years this magazine main- 
tained an exhibit at the old Exhibition Hall. It was always the center 
of interest and universally conceded to be one of the inost attractive booths 
in the building. 

In 1904 a change was made in the size and name of the publication. 
Since then the magazine is known as the "American Woman's Review." 
It is issued monthly in the interest of organized and federated women, 
telling by word and picture the happenings and progress of woman's work 
throughout the world. The magazine has now been run on a successful 
and paying basis for twenty-four years, and is published in its own office. 
Mrs. Orff has the distinction of being the only "quarter-of-a-century" 
woman publisher. 

In every World's Fair she has held the position of representative of 
women from the State of Missouri. Her appointment by Governor 
Francis as lady manager of the World's Columbian Exposition was one 
for which she was exceptionally well qualified. During this time she 
made a close study of conditions governing women in business, obtaining 
facts and figures showing the percentage of women's work done in her 
Stale. Giving out the concessions to women of Missouri was one of her 
duties, but strange to say, the only one who made application was Mrs. 
Rosa Sonnenschein, wife of Rabbi Sonnenschein, of St. Louis. She made 
bags of all descriptions, selling them at a booth in the Woman's Building. 
At the close of the fair her net profits were $5,000. 

Mrs. Orff was appointed representative of women's work of Missouri 
for the Paris Exposition, receiving her commission from Gov. Stephens. 
She has also been honored with other equally important commissions. 

One bit of clever advertising, entirely originating with Mrs. Orff, was 
the slogan "Made-in-St. Louis." She sent out letters to all women inter- 
esting them in the benefits that would accrue to husbands, fathers and 
brothers if all the manufacturers in this city took up her suggestion that 
an exhibition of their goods be held at a specified time. This found favor 
at once and the result was so successful that the Made-in-St.-Louis Show 
has become an annual event. Throughout the country Mrs. Orff is known 
as pushing her own city — advertising St. Louis. 

The "American Woman's Review" has an international subscription 
list, and an amusing incident in connection with soliciting foreign business 
occurred when a Japanese offered to exchange bulbs of a cinnamon vine 
for an advertisement in her magazine. He sent her several barrels of 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I 8 173 

them — each no larger than a peanut — so there was nothing else to do with 
such a quantity but oflfer them in turn as premiums for subscriptions, and 
in that way introduce the vine into the United States. Soon the beautiful 
foliage of the cinnamon vines, wliich are very hardy and prolific, became 
a prominent part of the garden decorations of many States, and particularly 
Missouri. 

Notwithstanding the business activity which has taken Mrs. Orff from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific Coast many times annually, she is a home-loving 
woman, and her artistic taste asserts itself in the furnishing and adorn- 
ment of her house. The dwelling designed by her on Washington Avenue 
was known as "Fairyland" because of the effective and original system of 
electric lighting, as well as splendid works of art in pictures and sculpture. 
This was completed in time for the Columbian Fair, and many noted 
people from foreign countries were entertained there. 

Mr. and Mrs. Orff have no children, but they adopted Mrs. Orff's three 
nephews while very young, whom they have reared and established in 
successful business occupations. Mrs. Ortf lent her influence and support 
to the work of building the Baptist Orphans' Home, the first money 
collected towards this fund being one hundred dollars from one hundred 
rose bushes donated by Mr. Shaw, of Shaw's Garden, wWch Mrs. Orff" 
sold, and the year following he donated one hundred more for the same 
institution. Her latest plan is to make a home for two thousand boys on 
her farm in Missouri, where they can earn money for use in learning any 
trade or profession for which they feel themselves adapted. She proposes 
in connection with this plan to have these boys live in her Locust Street 
Inn in the citj^ while they are studying in the winter months. 

Frank Orff is associated with his wife in the publishing business, as 
well as other enterprises. He is an active political worker, and is president 
of the St. Louis Progressive Club. 

Annie Laurie Y. Orff was born in Albany, N. Y., of Scotch parentage. 
Her father was Peter Napier Johnstone, a native of Edinburg, Scotland, 
and her mother, Marion Hart, of Glasgow. Mrs. Johnstone was a sister 
of William and James Hart, the two great animal painters of this country. 
Mrs. Orff inherited talent and artistic taste which she has developed to a 
marked degree. Many of her paintings as well as those of her distin- 
guished uncles adorn the walls of her home. Mrs. Orff is always 
handsomely gowned, and she thoroughly enjoys the limited social life that 
her many duties and responsibilities permit her to accept. Every moment 
of her time is occupied, but she is ever ready with tongue, pen and willing 
hand to further the progress of her sex. 



NOTE. Mrs. OriT died March 16th. from a stroke of paralysis, while this book was being published. 



174 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 



DR. ELLEN OSBORN 

DR. ELLEN OSBORN is not only versed in the branches of study 
relating to materia medica, surgery and anatomy, but she has a 
hopeful nature, cheerful disposition, and in a full measure the 
spirit of humanitarianism. To relieve suffering and bring back that 
glorious blessing of health to her patients is her main purpose in life. 

Ellen Osborn is a Missouri woman. Was born in this State and 
lived here all her life, and while she is interested in public affairs and 
progress for women, would rather be able to say "I can make you well" 
than "I can vote." Believing in suffrage to a limited degree, when 
questioned closely, she says "that is not my line." 

Attending the public schools at Union, Missouri, where she was born, 
until eighteen years of age, she entered Stevens' College in Columbia, 
remaining there for two years. After this she was engaged in teaching 
school near Gray's Summit for two years. 

When a little girl, Ellen Osborn would wish to be a man so she 
could be a doctor, and later, when a teacher, she expressed the same 
desire, but her parents thought it most disgraceful for a young lady to 
entertain such ambitions, and persuaded her to "put her mind on other 
things," which she did — for a time. However, one of those little incidents 
occurred which sometimes turns the course of events in one's life and 
brings things to a climax. This was while she was teaching. Being 
connected with the St. Louis Baptist Association as a missionary organizer, 
in Franklin and St. Louis counties, for the Women's Mission Society, she 
had come to St. Louis to get the little "owl" banks for distribution to the 
different branches which she had formed, in which were to be deposited 
donations. These were in a large paper sack that she was carrying on her 
way to the station to take her train for home. Suddenly it began to rain 
very hard, and befoi'e she could find shelter the bag got so wet it broke 
and all the banks fell in the mud. Bj' going back to the office for a new 
lot she missed her train and was obliged to stop over a whole day. 

While waiting in the Baptist Association office she became acquainted 
with Dr. William Majiield. He told her about his sanitarium in this city; 
that was the subject above all others about which she wished to hear. 
He invited her to visit the hospital, where she remained until train time, 
suggesting that later she might give up her school work and take up a 
course of training in nursing. This was the opportunity she had hoped 
for. How glad she was that she and the "owl" banks had been drenched 




RAGU PHOTO 



DR. ELLEN OSBORN 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 175 

in the rain! The desire to care for the sick and afflicted and minister to 
the wants of the suffering and helpless was so strong within her that 
only too slowly did the year of teaching drag on. 

The next season she went to the Baptist Sanitarium to take the course 
as promised by Dr. Maj^eld. After a year's work the wish to become a 
doctor — even though she were not a man — became so strong that she con- 
sulted with the doctor and he made arrangements for her to enter the St. 
Louis Woman's College, taking a three years' course and graduating in 
1893. 

At once she began practicing, locating in the vicinity of where the 
hospital now stands. Three prominent families in the neighborhood were 
her first patients, and through their influence she obtained many new ones. 
Before her practice became so extensive she did nursing for her own cases 
as well as others. The idea of a hospital came about in this way: Several 
out-of-town patients wanted to come to her to be operated upon and be 
taken into her home during the time of their treatment. The doctor 
agreed — but in order to do this it was necessary to rent a larger house. 

Without a dollar to pay on the rent the day she contracted for it, she 
agreed to pay $35 a month. 

The patients came and the rent was paid. As her practice grew larger 
she leased the beautiful building and grounds across the street from where 
the new hospital stands. Still her practice grew and it was decided to 
carry out her heart's desire — to build an up-to-date, fully equipped hospital 
of her own in the vicinity of where she had been so successful in establish- 
ing herself. The corner of 2800 North Taylor avenue was selected — facing 
east and west, and the corner-stone for the building was laid on April 1, 
1906. During the whole of the month of March previous it had rained 
every day, the weather had been of the worst kind, but on the day of the 
dedication the sun shone gloriously, and about 500 persons witnessed the 
ceremonies, heard the songs and addresses rendered by different ministers 
and friends, and altogether Dr. Osborn says the day the corner-stone of the 
Ellen Osborn Hospital was laid was the happiest of her life. The new 
institution was begun under sunshiny prospects and has prospered ever 
since. 

Dr. Osborn does general practice as well as surgery, and she attributes 
her success in no small measure to the fact that her former patients always 
bring new ones. One particular woman, whom she had taken in as a 
charity patient, has repaid her a hundred-fold, and was really the means 
of helping her establish the hospital. This woman sent her over 200 



176 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

patients from the locality in which she lived. At that time it was greatly 
appreciated by Dr. Osborn. 

Not all of her patients are women, although, of course, they constitute 
the greater part of her practice. The capacity of the hospital is for thirty- 
five in the main building, which is for surgery, and the adjoining building 
for contagious diseases accommodates twenty. They are always filled — 
unless sometimes during the months of January or February there may 
be a vacant room for a short time. 

Operations are performed everj' day by Dr. Osborn and outside 
surgeons. The operating room and drug store adjoining are up to date 
in every respect. The doctor tells about her first serious operation. It 
always makes her smile to recall it. This was an abdominal section on a 
woman. Everything was most scrupulously prepared to insure against 
accidents of any kind, and although it was in the coldest part of the winter, 
she was dripping wet from perspiration when finished. The woman got 
well and the next effort was not so appalling. 

Since the opening of the new building the hospital has boarded, 
nursed and treated 861 patients, most of them surgical cases. The mor- 
tality has been sixteen out of that number. Taking into consideration the 
fact that some hopeless cases, as well as many of the most dangerous 
surgical operations, were brought in, the doctor has cause to take pride 
in tliis record. 

The training school for nurses is under the best instructors in surgery 
and general medicine, obstetrics and dietetics. There are seven regular 
graduate nurses in attendance, while in the contagious department three 
are in training. In 1911 this school sent out five graduates. 

Dr. Julia Bly and Dr. Edna Stone, one of the Eclectic School and the 
latter fi'oni the Barnes Medical College, are her assistants; her sister, Mrs. 
Elizabeth Brown, is the superintendent. Dr. Osborn is a member of the 
Tri-State Medical Societj'. 

Dr. Osborn likes to work for those people who are afraid of operations 
and have an antipathy to hospital treatment; she wants to show them 
that she can treat them successfully. Even hospitals have happy times; 
it is not all sadness — the patients are so grateful and appreciative when 
they go home relieved of their afflictions. 

There is, too, an atmosphere of home about this little hospital — an 
absence of that formal and cheerless feeling one notices on entering most 
institutions of the kind. Perhaps this is partly due to its size by com- 
parison, but the whole place seems bright and sunny, and the nurses 
look interested and contented. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I 8 177 

The doctor says she owes much of her success to Dr. Augustus Charles 
Bernays, who died several years ago, and who was one of the most skillful 
surgeons in this countrj'. His reputation was world wide. He was one 
of her professors. She can still see him demonstrating to her class — he 
would take a piece of chalk and illustrate so clearly during his lectures 
that, today, she has but to close her eyes for a second to see him as she 
did then. In anatomj% he was wonderful in many ways. The things 
that seemed so complex before his demonstrations became crystal clear 
after his explanations and were indelibly fixed in the minds of Iiis hearers. 
His students have much to thank him for. 

All useless words were dropped from his lectures, leaving only the 
bare analysis in such forcible and siinple style that his meaning was 
thoroughly grasped, giving the pupils confidence in themselves. Dr. 
Bernays was a remarkabW swift and dexterous operator, and he was a 
natural-born teacher. More than that, he was a lover and believer in 
nature and nature only. "To me more dear, congenial to my heart, one 
native charm than all the gloss of art," is how he felt always. Just as he 
laid bare the root of disease with his scalpel, so he cut out all the shams 
and hypocrisies of his profession. 

Dr. Osborn's father was John Osborn. Now he is eighty-three years 
old and just as healthy as he was at fifty. A Virginian by birth — and 
one of the first settlers of Franklin County in Missouri — he has always 
been a farmer living near Union, but in later years retired and moved 
into the town. 

Caroline Triplett was Dr. Osborn's mother. Six weeks after her 
parents came to Missouri, from Virginia, she was born. The parents of 
both Dr. Osborn's father and mother lived to be nearly one hundred years 
old, and the doctor looks healthy enough to live that long herself. She 
makes one feel strong just to look at her. Two brothers and one sister, 
married, in Union, with the sister, Mrs. Brown, who is with her, comprise 
her family. They are all members of the Baptist Church. 

The Sunday-school class of the Euclid Baptist Church, Dr. Osborn 
says, is her one recreation outside of her work. This is composed of forty 
women, and she teaches them every Sunday. As to clubs, she has never 
belonged to one. She thinks thej' are all right for women who have 
nothing else to do. Women who have the intellectual capacity of follow- 
ing a profession rarely have time for other interests. Dr. Osborn has 
been serious and earnest in her calling. 

The Ladies of the Maccabees of the World and women of the Wood- 
men's Circle of the Woodmen of the World have appointed her their 
examining physician. These examinations are made in her hospital. 



178 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I 8 

Miss Georgiana Raby has acted as secretary to the Hospital Board and 
has rendered such valuable assistance to Dr. Osborn that she speaks of 
her in terms of warmest appreciation. 

Dr. Osborn is only forty-five years old, and has accomplished much, 
but hopes to enlarge her hospital and her sphere of work in the future. 

She has never been married, and says she is "a hopeless old maid," 
and that she has never had time to tliink of getting married. Dr. Osborn 
is a fine, strong character — earnest and sincere in the work of her pro- 
fession. She is keenly alive to its opportunities for rendering assistance 
to suffering humanity, handling any phase that may present itself with 
superior skill and judgment. 




4 



KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. EVERETT W. PATTISON 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 179 



MRS. EVERETT W. PATTISON 

MRS. EVERETT W. PATTISON is fond of saying that every drop of 
blood in her veins came over to Plymouth Bay in the first three 
ships, but her stern ancestry of mingled Puritan and Quaker is 
more apparent in her rigorous fulfillment of what she personally under- 
takes than in her attitude toward others. 

Twenty years in the West and South, if St. Louis be indeed both 
Southern and Western, extensive travels on four continents, intimate 
knowledge of art, practical and theoretical, and a wide social experience, 
have modified a life begun under a New England Colonial roof. 

On the one side of her family is a long line of bankers, running back 
to Thomas Cushman, financial manager of the Pilgrim Fathers; on the 
other are statesmen, abolitionists, reformers, of which her , grandfather. 
General Neal Dow, the father of prohibition, is now best remembered. 
To her childhood familiars, William Llojal Garrison, Henry W. Longfellow, 
Phillips Brooks, Dean Stanley, Dean Farrar, there have succeeded the 
men and women all over the world who are actually doing things worth 
while. Painters, sculptors, architects and writers have most influenced 
her later years, but she insists that without the sympathy and co-operation 
of her husband, a well-known lawyer and legal writer, her club and liter- 
ary work would have been impossible. 

From 1886 to 1896 Mrs. Pattison exhibited her paintings in Paris, 
New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and on the Western circuit, but as club 
and critical art work became more engrossing, she deliberately chose 
between the two fields. After close self-examination she gave away her 
brushes and paints, saying: "1 have no great creative talent; others can 
paint better; others have said for me and will say better all I can ever 
possibly express by brush and crayon. By giving up this form of art I 
shall have time for critical and executive art work, as well as for my 
house and my friends. I thus can fill a wider place than if I spent my 
days in my studio." 

Since this time Mrs. Pattison has been chairman of art committees 
and president of art clubs continuously. Her work as chairman of the 
Missouri State Art Committee put her on the Art Committee of the General 
Federation of Women's Clubs, from which position she was promoted to 
the chairmanship in 1908. In 1909 she was appointed a member of tlie 
Executive Committee of the American Federation of Arts, and in 1911 
she became a vice-president of this most important national organization. 



180 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I 8 

She served as president of the Art League of St. Louis as many years until 
its purpose of putting art into the pubUc schools was accomplished. Since 
1911 she has been a member of tlie Municipal Art Committee of the Civic 
League, representing that body at the notable convention of art commis- 
sions held in May, 1913, in the Old City Hall of New York. 

Men and women from all over the world took advantage of her classes 
in tlie art galleries of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and she has 
freely given her services to organizations, large and small, to groups of 
earnest workers everywhere, to social settlement audiences, and in private 
drawing rooms. 

Her preparations for tliis critical and explanatory branch of her 
profession have been thorough, but slie takes advantage of every leisure 
moment to continue her studies. In London, under Sidney Colvin, in 
Paris and Berlin, she has read, listened and mused over masterpieces. 
During three long summers she worked every day under the late S. R. 
Koehler in Boston — very recently under Dr. Denman W. Ross at Harvard. 

It is, however, as compiler and editor of the unique "Handbook of 
Art in Our Own Country" that Mrs. Pattison is best known abroad. This 
book, the second edition of which is nearly exhausted, has found homes 
in the museums and libraries of Europe and America, as well as on the 
shelves and tables of art lovers, and in the traveling bags of those who 
wish to see America with seeing eyes and well informed minds. 

While enjoying her many local clubs, such as the Wednesday Club, 
the Woman's Club, the Town Club, The Players, the Alhance Francaise, 
of which slie is vice-president, Mrs. Pattison by no means neglects her 
home nor her friends. In the same apartment for twenty years, she has 
here gathered a circle of intimates where plutocrat and Parnassian, social 
workers and beautiful debutantes, meet on equal footing. And here is 
seen evidence of the talent for interior decoration which Mrs. Pattison 
exercises so often for her friends and in consultation with professional 
decorators. 

"Life is so intensely interesting," she says, and perhaps this is the 
keynote to the character of this transplanted and transformed Puritan. 

Mrs. Pattison is always handsomely gowned — a stately woman with 
a clearly modulated voice, her lectures are universally appreciated. 




KANDELEn PHOTO 



MADAME ARMAND PEUGNET 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 181 



MADAME ARMAND PEUGNET 

THIS name stands for the foremost woman today of the old social 
regime in St. Louis, a grande dame in the best sense of the word. 
She is now eighty-six years old. Of the three original grand dames 
Mme. Peugnet is tlie only one living. The trio was composed of Mrs. 
Scanlan, Mrs. Peter L. Foy, and Mme. Armand Peugnet They were 
invited to act as olhcial hostesses for many noted personages who were 
entertained by tlie city, especially Mrs. Scanlan. The white stone mansion 
on Grand and Lucas Avenues, where she presided for so many years with 
the dignity of a queen, is no longer there, as time has wrought many 
changes, but the memory of the splendid social recognition and unap- 
proachable position accorded these three women will linger long in the 
memory and annals of the brightest side of historical events for which St. 
Louis is noted. Towards those not enjoying the social prominence of 
Mme. Peugnet she is the gentlewoman always, and in her home tlie 
atmosphere of peace and culture has pervaded, that has been sadly lacking 
in those of many aspiring to leadership of society. Snobbishness and the 
desire to rule are foreign to her catholic spirit — the unrest and dominance 
of such an aspiration would illy fit with the gentleness of a true aristocrat 
by birth, nature and achievement. 

She is not one to give an impression that money is an accessory of 
aristocracy; she is stately and commanding in appearance, and in the 
whole world there is notliing finer than tlie gentlewoman by nature — the 
real fine spun gold of worth. Generations of forefathers of judgment, 
experience, foresiglit, patience, endurance, and oilier sterling qualities, 
combine to form the character of the gentlefolk. Their forbears through 
deeds of valor and greatest energy laid the foundation of the character- 
istics of their offspring, which we now call aristocratic. While it is true 
tliat not all of the French stock who came to America were men of position 
and influence, and that later those who stood first in wealth and leadership 
could trace their ancestry back to men who earned their living by manual 
toil and were out of necessity laborers, and tradesmen, being obliged 
to hew, carve, build, dig and pioneer in every meaning of the word, yet 
there were also some who did hold a high lineage. Pierre de Laclede 
Liquest — or Pierre Laclede, as he often signed his name — the founder 
of St. Louis, was one. The annals in the possession of our historical 
libraries prove that. 

Mme. Peugnet is a descendant of Pierre Laclede and Mme. Chouteau. 
Pierre Laclede was born in 1724 and came from Bedous, France, when 
thirty-one years old, reaching Louisiana in 1755. Mme. Chouteau was 



182 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

Marie Therese Bourgeois, a daugiiter of a French officer, and a lady-in- 
waiting from the court of Cadiz, Spain. Shortlj' after Mr. and Mrs. Bour- 
geois arrived in New Orleans, where Mr. Bourgeois' brother had established 
himself in business, Marie Therese was born, and a few months later the 
father died. When Tlierese Bourgeois was six years old, her mother, a 
woman who stood high in the Catholic Church, died, and the child was 
placed in the Ursuline Convent in New Orleans, wliere she was reared. 

When very young she was married to Rene Auguste Chouteau, a New 
Orleans business man, who was born in Bearne, France, in 1739. To them 
was born a son, Auguste Chouteau, September 17, 1750. Her second 
marriage was with Pierre Laclede, to whom she was evidently deeply 
attached. She was a woman of remarkably strong character and much 
fortitude, as she underwent great liardships in pioneering with him. Mme. 
Chouteau died in St. Louis, August 14, 1814, at the age of eighty-one 
years, leaving many, many descendants who have fulfilled the prophecy 
of Laclede in building one of the finest cities in North America. 

Pierre Laclede was a member of the firm of Maxent, Laclede & Co., 
of New Orleans. He was sent up the Mississippi River to estabhsh a per- 
manent trading post by liis firm. Laclede, with Mme. Chouteau and 
their four children^-and her oldest son, Auguste — left New Orleans in 
crude boats, August 3, 1763, and three months later reached Ste. Gene- 
vieve, where there was no building large enough to store the goods brought 
by them. In 1763 the country east of the Mississippi had been ceded to the 
EngUsh. The commandant at Fort Chartres, about twenty miles above 
Ste. Genevieve, offered storage room until the English should arrive to 
take possession. This fort had been built by the French in 1720 for defense 
against the Spaniards. It was tiie best-built fort in North America. The 
offer was accepted by Laclede, and they reached there on November 
3, 1763. 

The winter was passed at Fort Chartres by Mme. Chouteau and her 
children, but Laclede and Auguste Chouteau went as far north as St. 
Charles to find a location on the west bank of the Mississippi where they 
could establish a settlement. 

The spot was selected and trees marked, and they returned to Fort 
Chartres to await the breaking up of the ice on the river. 

In the words of Laclede to Cliouteau, "You will proceed to the site on 
the left bank of the river, where we blazed the trees, and erect a house to 
store the tools and shelter the men. 1 give you two men on whom you can 
depend to aid you, and 1 will join you before long." 

Chouteau wrote the account of this expedition, his original manuscript 
in French now being in the Mercantile Library of St. Louis. It was 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 183 

translated and published by the library in 1858. It is, however, very 
short — only a few pages. 

Chouteau went in the boat with tliirty men, arriving Feb. 14, 1764, and 
Laclede, on horseback, accompanied Mme. Chouteau, who rode in a cart 
with her children, and with Antoine Riviere, Sr., as driver, to Cahokia, 
where she waited until a house was built for her on the site of St. Louis. 

History tells of the growth of the city. Pierre Laclede died in June, 
1778, while en route from New Orleans to St. Louis, where it was his 
custom to spend the winters in the interest of Laclede, Maxent & Co. 

His body was buried about two hundred yards back from the banks 
of the Mississippi at the mouth of the Arkansas, near a town called Napo- 
leon, in a beautiful spot which was afterwards a cemetery until washed 
away by the river. 

The castle where the family of Laclede lived in France has been 
visited by some of his descendants. The name was originally "de Laclede," 
but the prefix was dropped. George J. Zolnay, who has been working on 
a statue of Laclede for over two years, visited Bedous, the birthplace of 
Laclede, studj-ing the features of members of the family living there now, 
one of whom. Dr. Madamet, is Mayor of Bedous. His mother was a 
Laclede, and in him Zolnay found a great resemblance to the portrait of 
Pierre Laclede as he looked when he started for America. 

This statue will be unveiled May 30 between the City Hall and the 
Municipal Courts building. It is a gift to the City of St. Louis from the 
Centennial Association. 

Auguste Chouteau was thirty-eight years old at the time of Laclede's 
death. He married Therese Cerre, of Kaskaskia, in 1769. She died in St. 
Louis in 1842. He died in 1825. 

They had seven children: Auguste A., Henri, Edward, Gabriel 
Sj'lvestre, Eulalie, Louise and Emilie. 

By the union of Mme. Chouteau with Pierre Laclede four children 
were born. Pierre Chouteau was born in New Orleans in 1758, and died 
July 9, 1849. There were three daughters, Marie Louise, who married 
Marie Joseph Papin; Victoire, who married Charles Gratiot, and Pelagic, 
Mrs. Sylvestre Labaddie. 

Pierre Chouteau, the son of Mme. Chouteau and Pierre Laclede, 
was married first to Pelagic Kiersereau, and secondly to Brigite Saucier. 

Victoire, the daughter of Mme. Chouteau and Pierre Laclede, married 
Charles Gratiot, a Canadian, and their daughter, Julia Gratiot, born 1782, 
died 1852, married John Pierre Cabanne, and their daughter, Adele, born 
1805, died 1833, married John Baptiste Sarpy, whose daughter, Virginia, 
(now Mme. Peugnet), married first Frederick Bertholdt, son of Ber- 



184 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 

tholomew Berthold, and Pelagie Chouteau, who was the daughter of 
Pierre Chouteau and his second wife, Brigite Saucier. 

Mnie. Peugnet's second marriage was to Armand Peugnet, a member 
of the French diplomatic corps. From this marriage there is one son, 
Maurice B., a widower witli seven children, and two daughters, Claire 
and Eugenie, who have never married. Adele, the first wife of John 
Sarpy died when their only child, Virginia (Mme. Peugnet), was four 
years old. Later he married a second time, a Miss Russell, of the 
Irish family of O'Bannon, by whom he had two children, one the wife of 
J. L. D. Morrison, wlio figured in the political and land-dealing history of 
Illinois. After the death of Mr. Sarpy's second wife, Virginia Sarpy 
brought up the familj' of stepsister and stepbrother, assisted by her 
Grandmother Cabanne, who was her own mother's mother, but the 
children were never taken out of tlieir own liome whicli was then wliere 
tlie Carleton Building now stands. Sixth and Olive Streets. Virginia 
Sarpy's first scliooling was with Mme. Vitalis, who undertook the 
education of a limited number of girls, followed by a year in the Sacred 
Heart Convent; and, later, a short course at a female academy at 
Steubenville, Ohio, from which she was called on account of the last 
illness of her stepmother. Just before her death Mr. Sarpy was induced 
to take the family to Ste. Genevieve, Mo., where his wife could have 
the benefit of treatment by Father Celeni, a venerable priest, who was 
noted for his skill in making cures with herbs and nature's remedies. 
However, after remaining there for some time it was found to be futile; 
she died of consumption very soon after. 

The journey to the oldest settlement in the State was a delightful 
childish remembrance to Mme. Peugnet. At that time relatives of the 
family were living in Ste. Genevieve, engaged in the milling business 
under the name of Chouteau, Harrison & Valle. The old Chouteau 
mansion is still standing two miles above the town on the river bank, 
where the mill also stood, but which was recently destroyed by fire. 

Mr. Sarpy was a member of the American Fur Trading Co., the other 
members being relatives of Mr. Sarpy's first wife — Mr. Sire and Mr. 
Chouteau. Their dealings were with the Indians, trading goods for furs. 

After the second marriage of Mme. Peugnet she traveled abroad 
considerably during her husband's office of Consul in Germany, Spain 
and France. Mme. Peugnet has been a widow for many years. She is 
active, delightfully entertaining in relating the reminiscences and his- 
torical occurrences of the progress of St. Louis since the time when 
the belles and beaux took their promenades on the plank walks of Main 
Street, which was their only thoroughfare. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. HANNAH D. PITTMAN 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 185 



MRS. HANNAH D. PITTMAN 

ST. LOUIS has had, as everyone knows, her full quota of brilliant 
women in various fields of endeavor, and probably one of the best- 
known among them is Mrs. Hannah D. Pittman, who, for sixteen 
years was a member of the staff of the "Post-Dispatch," and during 
that time was also associated with John R. Reavis as assistant editor of 
the "St. Louis Spectator," a weekly paper founded by Joseph McCuUoch, 
John A. Dillon and Henry W. Moore, editors of local newspapers. 

While thus engaged she wrote several children's plays for Professor 
Mahler, which were presented at Saratoga during the summer season, 
and later in 1883, in collaboration with Professor Robyn, wrote her 
most ambitious dramatic work, a comic opera, which was presented at 
the Pickwick Summer Garden Theater by a professional company, with 
Laetitia Fritsch in the title role, to splendid audiences. The success was 
so great that the author accepted tlie offer of Pope's Theater managers 
to open the regular season with "Manette." The initial ovation was 
repeated, and from New York to London was cabled the success of the 
first American comic opera. 

Severing her connection with the newspapers, Mrs. Pittman devoted 
her time to magazine work. While so engaged she wrote a number of 
short stories illustrating the condition between masters and slaves during 
and immediately after the Civil War. 

In 1906, in response to a suggestion made by Hon. John S. Wise, 
she gathered these magazine articles — "Studies in Rlack and White" — 
together, and wove about them the story, "The Belle of the Bluegrass 
Country." The book proved a great success and is still, after a lapse of 
several years, one of the most frequently called for in the libraries. It has 
also been placed in nearly all of the college libraries in the Southern 
and Western States, as of historic value, from which may be learned 
from one upon the firing line of memory, the truth of the amazing 
situation during and following the Civil War. Treating also of the 
feudal life before the war, which is fast passing into the silence that follows 
every epoch of national change, the storj^ of "The Belle of the Bluegrass 
Country," possessing the atmosphere and charm of a bygone people and 
life, has attained the importance of history. 

Her second book, "The Heart of Kentucky," breathes of that stirring 
period when the State was almost rent in twain by two political factions. 
She has used the framework for a strong story, a story of the time when 



186 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 



the heart of true chivalry beat for honor and the courage of brave 
men and love was an exalted thing to be vindicated at the risk of all else. 

It is a tragic investure of an old tale convincingly related, giving 
tone and color to what appears as an incident in the history of a great 
State. The delicate subject is carefully handled and coming, as the book 
did, when the Thaw tragedy was absorbing pubUc notice, the "Heart 
of Kentucky" attracted much attention. Mrs. Pittman says of her story: "It 
is not, as some of my critics seem to think, a \'indication of the unwritten 
law; it is a plea for the enactment of stringent laws safeguarding the home. 
In an ancient little cemetery in a rural district of Central Kentucky may 
be found a large granite slab covering the resting-place of an unhappy 
couple who passed out of life together one summer morning early in the 
nineteenth century. Inscribed on the stone are several verses written by 
the wife wliile voluntarily occupying, contrary to all law and precedent, 
a cell with her husband. These verses are my motif of the tragedy." 

Mrs. Pittman's other stories, "Go Forth and Find" (inspired by 
Chauncey Depew's address to the graduates of the Medico-Chirurgical 
College at Philadelphia, May 5, 1907), "Get Married, Young Men" and 
"The Heart of a Doll" (1908), have proven popular successes. However, 
the most notable book she has written, "Americans of Gentle Birth 
and their Ancestors" — upon which she bestowed six years of hard work 
of research — is considered one of the most valuable works of that nature 
in the Congressional Library in Washington. 

Mrs. Pittman was born in Harrodsburg, Ky., the eldest daughter of 
Maj. William and Maria Thompson Daviess. She was graduated from 
the Presbyterian College of Harrodsburg, and married soon after William- 
son Haskins Pittman, a prominent wholesale dry goods merchant of 
St. Louis, senior member of the two firms — Pittman & Bro. and Pittman 
& Tennant — 1857 — ha\ing been engaged in the early fifties with James 
E. Yeatman (Yeatman, Pittman & Co.) in a general commission business. 
To his handsome home in St. Louis Mr. Pittman brought his bride. It 
was not long thereafter that the breaking out of the Civil War changed 
the whole map of the business situation in St. Louis. The Southern 
trade being cut oif these merchants were obliged to adjust their affairs 
to the new situations confronting them. In this process Mr. Pittman 
resumed his commission business and spent several years in cotton buying. 
On journeys to the Southern cities Mrs. Pittman accompanied her husband 
and became so much impressed with scenes and incidents in the lives 
of the people with whom she came in contact that she decided to begin 
writing short stories, as referred to before, which were later incorporated 
in her first novel. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. LOUIS 187 

Maj. William Daviess, Mrs. Pittman's father, lived on a beautiful 
estate called "Hayfields," near Harrodsburg, Ky. He was, as she described 
him in one of her books, a rare companion, celebrated throughout the 
State as a raconteur, a historian, a student of human nature, a great reader 
of books, as well as men; he had a strong judicial mind, having been 
educated for the law. 

In the State Senate he represented his district for two years and at 
one time when offered a nomination for Congress, declined, saying that 
"politics sooner or later engulfs men's souls," and he might not be able 
to withstand the temptations offered. Thereafter he lived the life of a 
"Latin farmer," with his delightfully hospitable home always open to 
strangers and friends. Here Hannah Daviess spent her early life amidst 
the old-fashioned flowers, fields of corn, grain and hemp, in a beautiful, 
spacious home surrounded by well-kept lawns. Until her wedding day 
life was unbroken in its evenness, each daj' unfolding a panorama of such 
charming scenes that, in her later years, these memories have suggested 
descriptions which have made her books delightfully interesting to all, 
and more so to those who are familiar with such scenes and times. 

Her mother, Maria Thompson Daviess, was a well-known writer of 
her day, a regular correspondent of "The Country Gentleman" and "Cole- 
man's Rural World." Her last contribution for "The Country Gentleman" 
was written on her eighty-second birthday. 

Mr. Pittman died in 1875, leaving his wife and five cliildren, residing 
in St. Louis. The eldest, Nannie, married Archer Anderson, of Louisa 
County, Virginia, now residing in St. Louis. W. Daviess Pittman, 
married Sallie D., only daughter of Robert D. Patterson, and has three 
children, Marie D., Cora, and W. Daviess Pittman, Jr. Asa Pittman, mar- 
ried Rose Marian, only daughter of D. D. Walker. They both died young, 
leaving an only daughter, Martha Walker Pittman. Trabue married Amy 
Opel, and has one son, Richard Trabue Pittman. Williamson Haskins 
Pittman, who died unmarried. 

Through lineal descent from John Thompson and Lewis Robards, 
officers of the Revolution, Mrs. Pittman is a member of the Society of the 
Daughters of the Revolution. Through lineal descent from Col. Wm. 
Claiborne, first secretary* and treasurer of the Colonies, and many other 
Colonial officers, she is a Colonial Dame, and a Colonial Daughter of the 
seventeenth centurj'. Through Governor John West, Governor Claiborne 
and Governor Wormley she belongs to "The Order of Colonial Governors." 

Because of her wide experience and observation Mrs. Pittman has 
been very successful in her literary efforts. She is possessed of a strong 
character and admirable personality. 



188 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 



MRS. FRANCES PORCHER 

AS to forbears, Mrs. Porcher is a Virginian, possessing the blue-and- 
sUver coat-of-arms of lier Woodson ancestors, who arrived in 1619 
(or 1623), and settled finally in Goochland County, and that of 
her Beckley ancestors, whose homestead was in old King William County, 
near the house of the Carter-Braxtons. 

There is still in possession in one branch of the Virginia Woodsons 
an old Spanish rifle said to be the identical weapon with which one Ligon 
— a French Huguenot refugee (a shoemaker by trade) — who had taken 
refuge with Dr. Woodson, helped the physician's wife kill nine out of a 
party of Indians who had pursued and killed her husband almost at his 
own threshold. Of the nine, Mrs. Woodson killed two; one she scalded 
to death, and destroyed the other with a spit used for roasting meat, but 
she assisted Ligon to such good purpose that the rest of the Indians fled. 

Mrs. Porcher's great-great-grandfather, Beckley, was elected Clerk of 
of the House of the first United States Congress, which assembled in the 
city of New York, March 4, 1789, at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets, 
but which failed to secure the proper quorum (thirty members) until 
March 30. 

In those days the Clerk of the House was elected the same as the 
Speaker, and John Beckley served continuously until shortly before his 
death in 1807, with the exception of three years spent in assisting in the 
revision of the laws of Virginia. 

When she was little more than a baby Mrs. Porcher's family moved to 
Missouri. She was educated at Pritchett Institute, Glasgow, Mo., of 
which, at that time, her uncle, the Bev. Carr Waller Pritchett, was presi- 
dent. Mrs. Porcher graduated at fifteen years, making the four years' 
course in two. Later she married a schoolmate, John Hale Roper, son 
of the Mayor of Glasgow, who died in four 3'ears, after which her news- 
paper work began, as the result of an almost accidental happening. Mrs. 
Roper wrote a satirical take-off on some questions that were being asked 
in the columns of a local paper, and a friend who was connected with the 
"St. Louis Star," took it down and showed it to the editor, Mr. Gilbert, 
formerly editor of the "New York Morning Journal," who kept and pub- 
lished it, and inquired whether she had ever done any journahstic work. 
He said he thought she might like it and sent for her, when she was imme- 
diately put on the staft' to do special and society articles, and in that way 
she began her newspaper career. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. FRANCES PORCHER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O U I 8 189 



Just the chance writing of a little sketch started lier on a long journal- 
istic connection that lasted until her marriage to Thomas Davis Porclier. 
She remained on "The Star" several years. "Dan" Reedy — the younger 
brother of William Marion Reedy — and Mrs. Roper began their work 
about the same time, and both being very inexperienced, were called the 
"kids" on "The Star" by the rest of the staff. 

Sometime before this, Augustus Thomas, tlie dramatic writer, was 
on one of the daily papers, and had written a column a day for forty days 
about the St. Louis Exposition, so upon being assigned to the Exposition 
a couple of years later, Mrs. Roper thought she could do what anyone else 
cmdd, and she, too, wrote a column a day for forty days, in addition to 
her regular writing, with the result that slie suffered a breakdown in 
health. 

She then changed her work and took charge of the advertising 
department of D. Crawford & Co., and the Swope Shoe Company, writing 
the advertisements of these firms for the newspapers, making contracts 
with them, and in connection with this also did general newspaper work. 

About 1890 Mr. M. Fanning and Mr. Galvin founded "The Mirror." 
Mr. Fanning was an old newspaper man and wanted to bring out a new 
weekly paper, and suggested to Mrs. Roper that she take a position on the 
staff of that paper, which she did, starting with the first issue, but keeping 
up her advertising work for D. Crawford & Co. This combination 
eventually netted her an income of about $3,000 a year. 

For "The Mirror" she wrote short stories, gave a certain space to book 
reviews, dramatic criticisms and other departments each week. When 
Mrs. Roper commenced her work on "The Star," William Marion Reedy 
was the city editor. This was about 1888 or 1889. He gave her a great 
deal of encouragement, being the most generous and appreciative of 
editors, notably upon one occasion when she had written a political 
critique entitled "Big Bugs' Ball," after the style of the Ingoldsby Legends. 

Later they were again associated when Mr. Reedy became editor of 
"The Mirror." After Mr. Fanning left St. Louis to go to Ohio, Mr. Dyer, 
who had been editor with Mr. Fanning, retired, and Mr. Reedy took the 
editorship and The Mirror Company was formed, with Mr. Le Berthon as 
business manager. Mrs. Roper continued as Mr. Reedy's assistant until 
her marriage in July, 1896 — that was for about four years, after which she 
contributed at varying intervals to "The Mirror" up to 1912. ' 

She has been married to Thomas Davis Porcher, who is at the head 
of the book department of Stix, Baer & Fuller, for seventeen years, having 
met him when he came from Chicago to open a book department for D. 
Crawford & Co. They have one son, Francis, who is sixteen j'ears old. 



190 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 

Mrs. Porcher has contributed, besides her "Mirror" work during her 
journahstic hfe, to the "Globe-Democrat," "Post-Dispatch" and "RepubHc;" 
also to a few Eastern periodicals. While on "The Mirror," Mrs. Porcher 
wrote some extremely interesting short stories; sometimes she signed her 
initials, but oftener no name was attached. Her work is now irregular — 
just when in the mood — but when one considers the great amount she has 
accomplished, it is not surprising. The quiet life of domesticity she seems 
to prefer, believing that it is impossible to struggle with the butcher and 
the baker and do good literary work. 

In 1913 she published a little story which is excellently conceived — 
"Mr. Perryman's Christmas Eve." Just a short story — bound attractively 
in small book form — an appropriate little Christmas gift. This was 
written in less than an hour. It was partly ideal, and yet she had 
known an old Scotchman of "Mr. Malcolm's" type whose hfe appealed 
to her very much. It seemed to be ideal when she was writing it, but 
after its composition she felt that this man's life had suggested the story 
and that it belongs to him more than to her. 

"Mr. Perryman's Christmas Eve" is the story of an old man who has 
never been married, and is served by a faithful valet, who anticipates his 
every wish so completely that everything in his household is managed 
smoothly and skillfully, and he never has a worry or care. When the 
faithful attendant feels that he is no longer capable of keeping this up in 
his old efficient manner he trains a young colored man, whom he has 
befriended since childhood; so when he quietly passes away the colored 
man appears at the home of Mr. Pei-ryman and announces himself as a 
"Christmas present" from "old Malcolm," whose last thought had been for 
his master's comfort. His thorough training shows in the valet's perfect 
adjustment to his new position and duties, carn>'ing out the thoughtful 
consideration of "old Malcolm" for every wish of Mr. Perryman. The 
flinty nature of the old gentleman had never been touched during the 
life of the faithful attendant as it was by this final forethought, and he 
yields at last to the nobler call which nothing else had stirred. 

It is a well-written story of a fine character, told so plainly and easily 
that one is sorry to close the little book. 

Some day, perhaps, Mrs. Porcher will classify in book form the many 
short stories she has written. When Mr. McCullagh was editor she wrote 
specials for the "Globe-Democrat;" he offered her the department that had 
been in charge of the Rev. Dr. Snyder, but was not willing to allow her 
to continue work on "The Mirror" at the same time, the result being that 
she continued to write specials only al intervals for Mr. McCullagh. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 191 

One of the most-appreciated financial successes in her experience 
happened wlien she was doing the advertising woi'k for D. Crawford & 
Co. She had her salary raised $260 a year for writing a saucy letter. Mr. 
Crawford saw the letter she had written to a solicitor and which was 
afterwards copied in a daily paper. That afternoon he called her in 
his office to say that she was worth $5 a week more to the firm, so for five 
years she received this extra amount, each week. 

Before entering on the staff of "The Mirror" she took a four months' 
trip abroad for a rest, and to meet a friend — Vida Croly — a daughter of 
Jennie June, who will be remembered as one of our first women journalists. 

When Mrs. Porcher was a child of three years, she possessed a picture 
of the Giant's Causeway, and also one of Venice, which she treasured and 
around which she built stories, planning to visit both these places when 
she grew up, thus proving the tenacity of childish impressions, because 
when she did go abroad she made her itinerary with a view to including 
these places. She went to Cork and saw Blarney Castle, and to Killarney, 
and Glengariff, and spent delightful days in the southern part of Ireland — 
the most romantic and cliarming part of that country. Then to Dublin 
and Belfast and up to the Causeway, which was one of the places of her 
dreams, and, unlike many visions of childhood, she was not disappointed 
in it, nor in her visit to Venice. She continued traveling through the 
principal cities of Switzerland, France, Germany and England for the rest 
of the time. 

During the World's Fair in 1904, a young man who had been sent 
here by the German Government as a representative, asked to have one 
of her stories translated for a magazine that was published in Berlin. She 
gave him permission to do so, and had forgotten about it, when a package 
was handed her two years later, in which she found a handsome leather 
case of a seal-brown color, to be used as a purse or for cards, with "The 
Color of Her Eyes" stamped upon it, this having been the title of the story. 

Mrs. Porcher says she writes like some women make pies — because 
she likes it; those talents are born in people. She is one of the kind who 
finds it difficult to write unless the atmosphere of writing is around her. 
It is very hard to write and be domestic, too. It is only when she can not 
resist writing that she does so well. She feels that the duty nearest one's 
hand is the thing to do. Women are very subjective creatures, and she 
fears that she can not do well both literary and domestic work, and does 
not want to do either half way. 

A chance word or meeting may suggest a story. Mrs. Porcher — 
when writing regularly — was always on the lookout for something that 
would furnish material for one. She does not always form the plot 



192 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

before beginning to write. Sometimes a description of a scene will be 
the nucleus for it — again she may think she has one drawn up, and after 
beginning to write it will evolve in such a manner as to have very little 
resemblance to her first plan. 

While under contract to furnish stories at certain times Mrs. Porcher 
would literally grind them out — sit up late at night and force herself to 
concoct a plan; but at times it would be very easy — a suggestion, a few 
appropriate sentences describing a situation, and the story was well under 
way. 

Mrs. Porcher is a tall woman, dignified in manner; she is delightfully 
original and entertaining, with a quiet sense of humor — refresliing and 
charming. 

Mrs. Porcher keeps herself informed of the productions of the literary 
world; she is a constant reader — that being her favorite recreation. The 
atmosphere of her home is very congenial, because of the harmonious 
literary tastes existing between herself and husband. 

In her social affiliations she is catholic to a degree, being not only an 
officer of the Jefferson Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 
but a member of the Society of Social Hygiene and of the National Child 
Labor Committee, and one of the Auxiliary Board of the Society for the 
Prevention and Cure of Tuberculosis. Upon the suffrage question she is 
a conservative suffragist, believing in an evolutionary winning of the 
ballot, educational in its progress, preparing woman for her added 
civic duties and responsibilities which will surely come with her future 
economic status as a full-fledged citizen with a voice in the laws by which 
she is governed. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS HELEN G. RATHBUN 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 193 



MISS HELEN G. RATHBUN 

IX considering the life of an artist it is generally known that there is 
uo success without constant work and many failures, and the failures 
outnumber the successes a hundred fold. The expression "an artist is 
born and not made" is a fallacy. No artist was ever made without tremen- 
dous effort on his part, also constant application and enough force of 
character to overcome seemingly unsurmountable diftlcultics and opposi- 
tion. In the case of Miss Rathbun the above can be applied, as her whole 
personalitj' shows that she has reached for the best in her art and will 
never stop until she has overcome the most difTicult problems in light, 
color, composition, etc. 

Miss Helen Ratlibun is a noted artist. She works in water colors and 
oil and cliildren are her favorite subjects, although interior scenes have 
been handled with superior skill, and outdoor studies, landscapes and 
street scenes show an effort to realize the light and air which nature sur- 
rounds and spreads over all of her works — as in Sorolla's paintings there 
is a constant cry for light and always more light. 

One of our best art critics in a general way says of Miss Rathbun that 
her work in this quality shows a steady and constant advance and in one 
of her latest pictures — "The Distant Hills" — it is most pronounced. 
Joined to this is a scientific study of color and a feeling for the dramatic 
in all of her work — swiftly moving clouds, flowing water, the glitter of 
sunshine, the action and movement that nature gives to her "mise en 
scene." Another quality she gets in her later work is that the picture 
seems larger than the canvas — larger than it really is. The clouds seem 
to continue higher, the landscape to spread out broader, and this is 
unconscious on the artist's pari; an older artist might know that it is due 
to a flow of line or a subtle study of color values — but Miss Rathbun just 
feels and gets it. 

All art workers see material in everything around them — a baby 
wrapped in an old faded shawl makes a pleasing bit of color. How can it 
be utilized? Just weave an atmosphere of romance around it — mother 
love — a bit of human nature done in paint and it is a "gem." 

The artist's dramatic instinct of turning everything into something 
material may not be "art for art's sake," but perhaps it is better. It is 
alive and it is life. Goethe says, "art is nature seen through a tempera- 
ment." A broader definition is beauty in some form that appeals to one 
of the five senses. Art from the standpoint of music, painting and 



194 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 



sculpture is a language which of course implies that one must have 
something to say and know how to say it giving the interpretation this 
appealing quality of beauty. 

Some artists claim that thej' have gotten beyond painting nature — 
life as it is. It is surely a high aim to fix on canvas from nature a picture 
that others may enjoj^ and Goethe's view is that no two human beings 
can see or do or say a thing in just the same way. It is impossible not 
to leave one's own individual stamp upon a painting, according to the 
strength of character and inchviduality one may possess, so no one need 
fear to be a mere copyist — one's little mite will have been added to nature's 
abundance. 

Many artists dislike to paint pictures with a motive, one that tells a 
story. The thought of the thing is its very soul and there is always a 
motive — beauty in some form — light, air, color, movement, tone, beauty 
of form or line. Emerson says, "Beauty is its own excuse for being" and 
Pope, "Soul is form." Reproduce the form and one can not miss the soul 
and so it comes about that the most intensely real is also the most soul- 
ful. The one who has caught the essence of things by an intense devotion 
to the true rendering of its outward appearance is the real realist. 

In speaking of Miss Rathbun's pictures, Edgar Bissell our finest 
portrait painter, says, "Miss Rathbun just seems to paint from knowledge 
— just sits down anj'where and paints a picture without over-inuch looking 
around for 'compositions." Describing one called "And the Flood," it is 
just the brimming river spreading over everything — water everywhere — 
in the masses of clouds hanging heavily above — technically — just values 
and color and handling and the elimination of unnecessary things from the 
composition. One large painting, "The Broken Toy," is a bit of child 
nature — the little man who seeks the source of sympathy, the eternal 
feminine where all troubles are brought and from the artistic side it is 
a very successful effort to show the spread of the sunshine thrown over the 
scene — children, lawn, trees. 

"Mother Love" is another good picture. What does this not express 
of protection, care and watchfulness and unselfish work and hope? In 
this picture is a good rendering of color and textures, the way forms 
disappear and the mysteries of the shadows. 

And what is better than the instinct which has shown us mother's joy 
in her infant? 

"Boy Fisliing" is another attractive picture. A boy with a short 
stick with a bent pin tied to a string angling for a fish that never bites, 
and that is somewhat like the artistic profession — a paint box and some 
brushes and a hard-hearted public. 



7\' T A B L E WOMEN OF 8 T. LOUIS 195 

In her old-fashioned home, brought up by her aunties since she was 
nine years old, Miss Rathbun has spent her life; the antique furnishings 
and quaint surroundings have developed in her such a love of this atmos- 
phere that many of her pictures show the influence — the peace, placidity 
and harmony in her interior subjects rests one to look at them. One 
particular picture made from a corner of the living room shows a little 
maid sitting contentedly in an old-fasloioned armchair near a table of 
polished mahogany of an earlj' period, a sconce on the wall and an open 
door showing the furnishings of the next room in perfect harmony. 
This is a treasure — there is such an air of cheerful comfort that one longs 
to creep into the picture and be a part of it. 

Many of her pictures have gained honors as well as prizes. In 1909 
she was awarded the first prize at the woman's exhibit of the Artists' 
Guild. This was "An Autumn Landscape." The next year she captured 
a prize in the same exhibition. She has also exhibited in the Eastern art 
galleries. 

Wliile in the Normal School, from which she was graduated. Miss 
Ratlibun showed such decided talent that Frederick O. Sylvester, her 
instructor, urged her to devote her undivided time to this branch of art. 
A short course in the St. Louis Art School was of much value, but the 
guidance of Edgar J. Bissell she considers of inestimable value and was 
the best possible training she might have had. Mr. Bissell has assisted and 
directed many artists who have made splendid success. Mrs. George 
Wells is another promising student whom he has aided in developing 
unusual artistic ability and for whom he predicts a future. 

Miss Rathbun is lovable and charmingly sincere. She is tall and 
graceful. Born in California in 1878, she has many years before her to 
add laurels to her name. 



196 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 



MRS. CALVIN KRYDER REIFSNIDER 

MRS. ANNA ELLIS REIFSNIDER, M'ho has earned $60,000 with her 
pen, lives at 5249 Lindell Terrace, in one of the most compactly and 
tastefully-built new homes of this city. The finest materials were 
used throughout; for instance, much of the wood used on tlie interior is of 
extra selected mahoganj', and everything else is in keeping, all possible 
conveniences from an electric elevator to the small necessities in a snow- 
white tiled kitchen presided over by a Japanese chef who makes even the 
pots and pans look artistic. In short, it is a "gem." 

It is a very interesting story just how she did earn this amount of 
money and her experiences while so doing — and it is quite a good sum 
when one stops to think of it — and more than that it is an instigation and 
stimulus to those who have talent in a literary waj', or in fact any other 
way, and want to use it to their gain, to read how much pluck and grit one 
little woman can show, and how success must come to one who perseveres. 
Mrs. Reifsnider is really a very small woman, but she is one of those quiet, 
forceful, deliberate women who means just what she says, and she 
impresses one that she will only say what she means. Her face is 
serious — yes, very, and sweet, too, as one surmises not wrongfully from 
the deep dimple in her cliin. Her manner of dress is dainty and elegant, 
her favorite colors being gray, lavender and white. 

At the age of ten Mrs. Reifsnider wrote her first story — "My First Visit 
to St. Louis." This showed decided talent and she was therefore encour- 
aged to continue. Her father and mother were Virginians. In speaking 
of her childhood days she takes pride in stating that she was born and 
lived until nine years old in the country where bright skies, broad prairies, 
huge forests, singing birds and flowing streams were her companions. 
She was kept steadily in a first-class academy from the age of nine to 
fourteen, at whicli time she received a degree of Mistress of Academic 
Sciences. From fourteen to fifteen her entire time was given to music, 
drawing, painting, Frencli and German. She had the verj' best of masters 
that could be procured for the money, and her work showed that she 
strived to improve her opportunities. Of course her Virginia parents 
did not educate her with a view to turning her education to account. It 
was pride and ambition that caused them to urge her on with love, praise 
and presents to win laurels at so tender an age. Years afterwards she 
took a post-graduate course at the Boston School of Oratory. 




SCHWEIG PHOTO 



MRS. CALVIN KRYDER REIFSNIDER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I 8 197 

Books were her idols; she had dreams of fame with pen and brush, 
and when a flattering position was offered her in a good college in 1865, 
she accepted joyfullj' and retained the position until she was married. 

Her husband, John W. EUis, who had been elected Clerk of the 
County and Probate Court of Montgomery County the first year of their 
marriage, lost his health. She told the judges the work should go on, and 
she was the clerk for the four years term, the salary and fees amounting 
to over $5,000 per annum. In the year 1868, when the Board of Equaliza- 
tion met and changed the taxes, she rewrote the entire tax book, every 
word and figure, computing the new tax of one-fourth of one per cent — 
across the wide pages, footing the long columns of figures — and it was 
found when the book was finished and examined by experts to be absolutely 
accurate from cover to cover. For this work she was allowed $1,200, and 
she did it in less than three months. 

At twenty-two, having been married at eighteen, she found herself 
alone in the world, with two babies. Then she was brought face to face 
with the stern fact that she must turn her attention to something as a 
means of support. She thought of what she was best fitted to do — any- 
thing in her power to become independent and rear and educate her 
children — and besides she had an ambition to be a prop and support to 
her parents in their old age. 

Her father lost his slaves during the war and had unwiseh' gone 
security for friends wlaich he had to pay. This, added to the fact that 
he had been with the South, earned nothing and lost heavily during every 
year of the war, found him, like hundi-eds of others, with but a small 
remnant of his fortune left. 

Not long after she commenced as a law writer the dollars began to 
count up, and Mrs. Reifsnider says when once you have saved the first 
five hundred there is an ambition to save a thousand. 

"You may talk about friends, but I tell you in all your life long you 
will never find a more steadfast friend than this much despised thing 
called money." 

As her earnings increased she held her expenses down, and she says 
as the margin grew wider, and without any other perceptible cause, her 
health grew better. She grew stronger with the elixir of hope and inde- 
pendence, feeling that no drug store in tliis or any other city can sell a 
cordial that will put new marrow into one's bones, new blood in one's 
veins, new light in one's eyes, elasticity in one's step, like the thought of 
one's honestly earned and carefully saved money. She knows it, for she 
has proven it. She was not penurious, having a dollar always for a good 
cause but never one to waste. If she ever felt tired or weary she thought 



198 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

of her bank account; a dream of the farm in dear old Montgomery County 
to be bought, that soon would be paid for, started the blood coursing 
through her veins, and each nerve was an electric wire carrying the glad 
tidings to every tired muscle that independence and freedom would soon 
be hers. 

"Now is the seed time," reason would say, "the harvest shall come 
and you shall reap golden grain." Was it a wonder that she had almost 
superhuman strength? So many bright hopes, and each day's toil told 
her in plain figures that they would be realized. A beautiful hat in a show 
window might tempt her — for she was a woman still, and loved beau- 
tiful things. She would pause to look at it, and would be tempted to go 
in and buy — she was working hard and she deserved something pretty, too 
— but then she would think of her parents and her babies, and they were 
a stronger appeal to her mother heart than the finest laces and velvet and 
plumes. No other woman envied her in her plain clothes. She has seen 
much envy and great sorrow caused by extravagance, has seen it bring 
wreck and ruin. "No, no, stay away from millinery stores and dry goods 
stores. Think of your dear ones only and turn from temptations." 

We must bear in mind, however, that the time when Mrs. Reifsnider 
was so successful with shorthand, in the early '70s, there were no short- 
hand correspondents. They were really law writers, and a law writer's 
profession in those days was more lucrative than that of the law. They 
were paid $10 per day for taking notes, and by the folio for transcribing 
them, and a rapid longhand writer could transcribe fifty to sixty folios per 
day. One hour before court opened the reporters read off to a shorthand 
writer sufficient notes to keep the transcriber busy all day and she could 
return to her home to make the transcript instead of sitting in an office. 
About eighteen months of this work was all Mrs. Reifsnider did until she 
began reading Mr. L. L. Walbridge's notes. During the summer of 1875 
he was appointed official stenographer of the Constitutional Convention. 
Mrs. Reifsnider went to Jefferson City during that summer. He would 
take the debates in the convention and read off his notes for her to 
transcribe for the daily papers in St. Louis and other places. The entire 
verbatim proceedings of the convention were reported and ordered 
written up. 

She had many thousand pages of these notes, and as there was no haste 
for them, having until the next convening of the Legislature (two years) 
to prepare them, they filled in admirably every interval of time that would 
during the summer vacation of the courts have been idle, and swelled her 
income quite handsomely. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 199 

It was during that summer that her happiest thought struck her. One 
day when the official stenographer of the convention was asked why he 
did not get some one to transcribe his notes, he said: "As well get some- 
body to translate Chinese inscriptions — it can't be done; not many report- 
ers can read their own notes satisfactorily when they are cold. No, no, I 
am only thankful I can read them myself." 

She listened to this with interest and always having had an ambition 
to do what nobody else would try to do, resolved to read the reporter's 
notes and at the first opportunity told him so. 

"I scarcely think it possible," he said to her. "It would be a hopeless 
undertaking." 

She replied: "I can not think so; at any rate, when we return to St. 
Louis let us undertake it; it would be a mutual gain." 

She found that she could do this and then shorthand began to pay, 
indeed. No idle hours waiting to take notes. He sent her notes from the 
Courthouse and in her cozy room she was earning double the amount each 
week she had been able to do before. 

In the meantime she learned to use the typewriter. With it she could 
earn $60 to $100 or more each week, and her income was sure and her 
labor less by reading L. L. Walbridge's shorthand notes. 

This continued until the State law was passed for each Circuit Court 
to have an official stenographer. In 1882 Mr. Walbridge was appointed to 
the United States Court. Arthur J. Barnes was one of the most expert 
court reporters of that period. 

Apropos of patient genius. The index to the present city charter, 
1876, had puzzled many experienced persons. Mr. Walbridge said he 
would not do it for a thousand dollars, but told Mrs. Reifsnider he would 
take it in rough shorthand notes in its jumble if she would disentangle 
it, and put it in alphabetical and proper order. She agreed, and returned 
it to him, written with a Cillott crow-quill pen and India ink, in one 
week, and he exclaimed: "It is a thing of beauty." Whether the charter 
is a joy forever the city must decide years hence. 

In the seventies sermons, lectures, etc., were reported verbatim and 
transcribed in manifold for the big daily papers at $17 per column. 
Henry Ward Beecher, Richard A. Proctor, and such lecturers — indeed, all 
the great men — were reported thus, until the art advanced so that minis- 
ters and lecturers could have their own special amanuenses. The palmy 
days of shorthand ended except for official court reporters, private 
secretaries, etc., when the schools flooded tlie market with correspondents. 
The law work came naturally to Mrs. Reifsnider because she was familiar 
with the Missouri Reports and had read law with her father as a girl. 



200 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

This drill gave her a very substantial foundation on which to build her 
literary work. Mrs. Reifsnider says she was singularly fortunate in her 
adaptability to her work and more so in entering the field at the zenith of 
its glory, in the foresight to provide for the time when there would be too 
many to be paid well, in saving, investing, etc. Mrs. Reifsnider is, of all 
tilings, a home lover. She believes that women should have equal pay for 
equal work, but only when it is absolutely necessary for them to work. 

As her experience was in the regal days of shorthand, so has she found 
the practical writing for technical periodicals the most remunerative. It 
has been said that she is the one woman writer whose work is so diverse 
that no one could trace the author; now a romance, now a psychological 
story, then a serial for boys, an essay; again she deals with a strike with a 
diplomatic hand, but she loves to run under cover and hide under a nom 
de plume, and one of her books which created much discussion has never 
been printed under her name, and the nom de plume never revealed. 

Professor David Swing, of Chicago, who was one of Mrs. Reifsnider's 
lifelong friends and advisers, urged her to publish a story — which she 
had written for a magazine — in book form, saying it was a duty she 
owed to other women. This book was, "How She Earned It; or, $25,000 
in Eleven Years." 

66 Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Jan. 21, 1893. 
Mrs. Anna C. Reifsnider. 

Dear Friend — The book which, in its first manuscript, seemed so good, 
now in print impresses me even more deeply. I not only like the book, 
but I thank you for living such a life. Your energy and wisdom would 
inspire me were I young. You are a leader of the doubting ones. I wish 
all hearts might read your story. Should they not all reach the same 
money they would reach a better character and a rich self-consciousness. 

Always yours, 

DAVID SWING. 

Another book which she wrote under a non de plume had an enor- 
mous sale — 5,000 copies a week were issued for some time and the sale 
is still good. 

"Between Two Worlds" was first run in serial form in the "Arena," 
of Boston, and then published in book form, and had an unusual sale, it 
being necessary to bring out a second edition in a very short time. It 
illustrates Browning's idea, "No work shall stop for death," showing the 
relation between the natural and the spiritual worlds. 

"True Memory" came next. It was a book that made friends and 
enemies in the religious world and brought her ever so many letters from 
prominent and noted people. One she prizes was from the great Robert 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I 8 201 

Collier, D. D., who said, "I have read it with great joy, and sent it on a 
loving mission beyond the sea." 

"Unforgiven" was a very popular book. The theme of the story is 
the development of the true life through loving, conscientious work. 

"Gilgal — or Stepping Stones in the Pathway to Success," fairly over- 
flows with curt little sayings, which are adjusted and modernized to suit 
the conditions of the present day. The author calls them little mirrors 
into which one can take a peep at himself. 

From 1898 to 1901 Mrs. Reifsnider was one of the editors of "The 
Coming Age," of Boston, where she resided during most of that time. 
This was one of the most popular, brilliant, and successful literary maga- 
zines in the country, having as contributors such writers as Rev. Edward 
Everett Hale, Rev. George C. Lorrimore, Rev J. Henry Wiggin, Rev. Heber 
Newton, Professor Nathaniel Schmidt, Rev. W. C. Bitting, Professor John 
Uri Lloyd, and scores of other famous writers. 

It was found to be impractical for her husband to move the home 
office of his publishing business to the East, and Mrs. Reifsnider was not 
willing to remain longer from St. Louis, even with the congenial work and 
pleasant surroundings in Boston, so returned to her home. 

Mrs. Reifsnider traces her lineage back to 1600. She belongs to the 
National Society of the D. A. R. and has four bars — two paternal, and two 
maternal ancestors having held offices in the Revolutionary War. She is 
an honorary member of the Society for Psychical Research. 

First, last and always, Mrs. Reifsnider loves home above all else, 
and her pride is that her battle of life was for her loved ones, and her grat- 
itude that its reward was a devoted husband and a happy home. 

In 1882, after Mrs. Reifsnider had written "Unforgiven," she met her 
husband — he had read the book and wanted to know the author. She 
bears liis name now and has reared his three children, two girls and one 
boy. She taught them all shorthand, as well as her own, and they never 
entered a school after she was their "mamma." She placed in their hands 
the weapon with which to fight the battle of life, and has the comfort of 
knowing that should there be a necessity for it they are prepared. They 
are all married now and in comfortable homes. 

Mrs. Reifsnider is the vice-president of the Midland Publishing Com- 
pany, which company pays a handsome dividend annually, and of which 
her husband is the president, and in 1886 bought out his partner. She 
writes serials and short stories for the magazine published by this 
company. 



202 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MRS. FLORENCE WYMAN-RICHARDSON 

MRS. FLORENCE WYMAN-RICHARDSON was one of the early 
workers for the St. Louis Symphony Society, assisted in organizing 
the St. Louis Equal Suffrage League, and was the founder of the 
Piano Club. 

For twelve years she conducted classes in Theosophy, also contributed 
to leading periodicals. Later she became a member of the Executive Board 
of the Woman's Trade Union League, and of the Suffrage Committee of 
the National W. T. U. League. 

In 1855 Florence Wynian was born in St. Louis. Her parents were 
Edward Wyman, a noted educator, and Elizabeth Frances Hadley. Both 
came from Boston — the part that was called Charlestown. Mrs. Richard- 
son expresses herself in loving and appreciative terms of the devotion and 
patience of her father's second wife, Martha Leigh, to whom she renders 
thankful acknowledgment for her years of care and training. 

She was educated at Bonham's Seminary and Mary Institute, graduat- 
ing from the latter in 1873, in the class with Emilie Johnson and NelUe 
Hazeltine, and again from the advanced course two years later, under Mr. 
Carlos Pennell, Dr. Wilham G. Elliott and Miss Wall. 

From the age of eight years Miss Wyman had the best music teachers 
the city afforded, beginning with the temperamental Sabatski. These were 
continued until she was twentj'-two years of age. The one who did most to 
form her taste and develop a real love of music, not only as an art but as 
a part of life itself, was William G. Robyn, father of Alfred Robyn. His 
sincere and genial nature made it easy for him to impress his pupils with 
an attitude of reverence towards the classics as represented by Beethoven, 
Mozart, Bach and Haydn, which has continued as a guiding principle 
throughout her life. He was succeeded by a number of other teachers, 
notably Egmont Froelich, who gave her a valuable training in technic 
specified as the Stuttgart method. At nineteen she began work with 
Arthur J. Creswold, and after a year was given a position as organist in 
the First Presbyterian Church, playing in concerts as well as for the 
service. 

About this time the question was brought up as to her going abroad 
to study for a professional life, but instead she was married in 1878 to 
James Richardson. For a number of years she devoted her energies 
mainly to her family of six children — three sons and three daughters, but 
managed in a social way to keep up her music. 




STRAUSS PHOTO 



MRS. FLORENCE WYMAN-RICHARDSON 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I S 203 

Mrs. Richardson originated the idea of organizing tlie Piano Club, of 
which she was the president for the first seven years, and which is now in 
its twenty-fifth j'ear. This was tlie first music club of any persistent 
endeavor of whicli St. Louis could boast. It was formed to foster piano 
work, only one-third of the members being vocalists and two-thirds 
pianists. Many of the niusicales were given at her old home in Cabanne 
Place, where the club entertained among others, Carl Faelton, of the New 
England Conservatory; Mrs. Eliot, wife of Harvard's president, and also 
gave its friends the pleasure of a recital by Adele Aus der Ohe. 

It was in this old home, too, that she called a meeting of women 
interested in music to take a part in forming a symphony organization in 
connection with the local choral society. This was one of the efforts 
which shortly afterwards helped in the founding of a home orchestra which 
has developed into our present successful Symphony Orchestra. 

Many other pleasant occasions distinguished her life in that old 
home when such men as Josiah Royce, Hamlin Garland and John Fiske 
were present. Such friends as these had a distinct and helpful influence 
on her life, as did three other persons whose wonderful services as friends 
she wishes especiallj^ to note Mrs. Guida Lippman, Mrs. Lydia Fuller 
Dickinson and Mr. Charles L. Deyo. 

In this connection, Mrs. Richardson says: "They were grand figures, 
significant in the lives of many and deeply so in mine. The fact that these 
two great women made me their comrade, stimulating me with their 
wealth of philosophical thought, spiritual insight and practical experience, 
is only less valuable than the fact that they gave me also their love, treat- 
ing me as time went on as a daughter. They urged upon me the necessity 
of 'living in universals,' and as they themselves lived thus, they lived 
creatively. As for Mr. Deyo, there are a number of persons in St. Louis 
who know that friendship with him meant being carried to a region of 
intellectual scope where thought of the highest order lifted one far above 
the dead level of commonplace without severing the threads that bind 
us to the general order of everyday life. We were all glad to get his able 
and catholic views, engendered as thej'^ M'ere by intellectual acumen and 
great nobility of character. These friendships, in part successive, but in 
some measure simultaneous, serve to enrich my experience as few other 
things have done." 

During the years so marked by these rare friendships she was making 
a close study of theosophy, a subject quite generally misunderstood but 
which is mainly the study of correlations between scientific, philosophical 
and religious postulates, mingled always with the wholesoine idea of 
putting every good discovered into practical life. 



204 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O U I S 

For twelve years she led classes in this field of religious pliilosophy — 
the task, of course, being a laljor of love. Within the term of this active 
work she visited for three successive seasons, several weeks each, that 
curious and interesting summer colon}', called Greenacre, at Eliot, Me., 
on the Piscataqua River. At this place many lecturers contributed their 
thoughts, writings and music. Many cults were represented, many phil- 
osophies, and much practical, scientific and ethical teaching. After 
browsing for weeks in this camp one might bring out of it a helpless 
mental confusion, or one might, using discrimination, find the golden key 
to life among the odds and ends of ideas wliich helped to form the proper- 
ties of the lecture platform. There were such high-class thinkers as 
Edward Everett Hale, John Fiske, Edwin D. Meade, Charles Johnston and 
Nathaniel Schmidt offsetting the "interpretations" and "inspirational" 
talks of lesser folk. One season in particular Doctor Janes, of Cambridge, 
conducted a school of coinparative religion in which some of the men 
named above gave most interesting and valuable courses. The last two 
weeks of the season he suffered from a serious illness and Mrs. Richardson 
filled his place in presicUng at the meetings. During her Greenacre 
experience she lectured seven times — the topics being Music, Genius and 
Theosophy. Mrs. Richardson says: 

"The writing of an essay may not appear to be a 'main event' in the 
life of anyone, but to me it was one of the most exciting things that ever 
happened. In the winter of 1904 I went to French Lick Springs for a 
three weeks' rest. Although utterly depleted nervously after five days I 
began to write. It was an article on Evolution, and was published the 
following year in the 'London Theosophical Review.' Very much of its 
content was the direct fruit of study, but apart from tliis it did embody 
something of my own, as much of the creative as I have put forth into 
form. The most important of the ideas were enunciated in quite simple 
formulae, and were not analytically expanded as I hope some time to do. 
A further interesting experience followed. I attended a course of six 
lectures by a well-known leader and writer in philosophical circles. I had 
been told that in this course he would unfold a postulate which went one 
step further than Hegel, and which he regarded as his own contribution 
to philosophical thought. The progress of this unfoldment was careful, 
detailed, involved, slow, fhorough and finally clear. It took six lectures 
to develop the idea. It was my idea, which I had formulated in three 
phrases but had not subjected it as he had to an analytical process." 

In St. Louis she presided for several years over the little local branch 
of the Theosophical Society, but in 1908 resigned continuing her study 
classes for two years later. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 205 

lu the winter of 1910 it began to be apparent that something could 
be done in tlie woman suffrage work. As a cliild and young woman 
she had been deeply wounded by the numberless imphcations, religious, 
social, etc., claiming the superiority of men. In 1882 she joined the 
struggling suffrage club of the day under Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, working 
for a time on a petition to the Missouri Legislature asking that the age 
of consent be raised. At that time it was twelve years in our State, 
ten and eleven in several others, and seven in Delaware. Illness in her 
family prevented a continuance of this work and a period of inertness 
and inactivity followed into which she lapsed into a mainly personal life. 

In 1908 she was placed on the Executive Board of the St. Louis 
Woman's Trade Union League and at the convention of the National 
Woman's Trade Union League in Boston, in 1911, was made a member 
of the suffrage committee of that body. The essential relation of this 
great movement to woman's suffrage makes work for both of them 
at once interesting and effective. 

One day in the winter of 1910 she was surprised by a call from 
Miss Laura Gregg now the Mrs. Cannon who has been active in the 
recent Arizona suffrage campaign. She announced herself as being sent 
from the National Woman Suffrage headquarters in response to a request 
from Miss Florence W. Richardson. Without saying anything about 
it her daughter had written the association in New York, asking for 
an organizer, and as Miss Gregg was at work in Illinois, they had sent 
her over to them. The three women threshed the matter over that 
afternoon and immediately afterwards Miss Florence Richardson — now 
Mrs. Florence W. Richardson Usher, wife of Roland G. Usher, of Wash- 
ington University of this city, drew up a circular letter addressing it 
to a very small number of women. In answer to this about a half-dozen 
met in the apartment of Miss Marie Garesche. Of these, besides the 
hostesses, Mrs. Richardson and Miss Florence Richardson, were Mrs. 
Percival Chubb — then Mrs. Sheldon — Mrs. Robert Atkinson, Miss Jennie 
Jones, Miss Maud Fleckner — now Mrs. Anthony Ittner — and Miss Bertha 
Rombauer. 

After this. Miss Richardson made a house-to-house canvass; the 
newspapers hailed them as something new under the sun, giving them 
a notoriety, the strain of which they bore as part of the pioneer work 
though at times becoming very tense over it. The first suffrage speech 
made by Mrs. Richardson was at the Artists' Guild, the second one was 
from the platform of the Christian Socialists, and these have since been 
followed by very many others. 



206 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L O U J 8 

A second circular letter was sent to a larger number of women, 
many of whom met at Mrs. Richardson's home on April 13, 1910, and 
organized, with due form and ceremonj% forty members strong, electing 
her as president; Miss Garesche and Mrs. Atkinson, vice-presidents, and 
Miss Bertha Rombauer and Mrs. D. W. Kneffler, secretary and treasurer, 
respectively. A board of fifteen governors was formed including the 
officers. Then began the struggle which is now carried on so brilliantly 
by its present leaders. With no money, almost everj' hand against them, 
opposition in the homes of many, and scant courtesy outside of them, 
covert insinuations as to their taste in making themselves conspicuous, 
and the deadly silence of disapproving friends — with all these they 
contended. But this pioneer era, having been lived through staunchly, is 
a source of deep satisfaction in the retrospect to Mrs. Richardson, who 
reluctantly resigned the presidency on account of ill-health in February, 
1912. Woman suffrage, locally and generally, is moving forward under 
able leadership to inevitable success, and this will be to her — as to many 
women — as much one of life's climaxes as any more personal consum- 
mation. 

Mrs. Florence Wyman-Richardson is endowed with a fine, eager, 
receptive mind, and power in her hands has not been misplaced, for 
she has done much in advancing the cause of equality and education 
of women, as well as the musical development of the city which she calls 
her home. She is a handsome, statelj' woman, very much admired. 

Educated mothers have educated children and Mrs. Richardson has 
the satisfaction of seeing her work go on through her daughter, Mrs. 
Usher, whose individuality and intelligence show a carefully trained 
mind. Another daughter, Elizabeth Hadley Richardson, is a Bryn Mawr 
student. The oldest child, and only son is James Richardson now living 
in Omaha, Neb., and taking an active part in the civic interests of 
that city. 

Emerson's fine phrase, "Plain living and high thinking," is a part 
of Mrs. Richardson's creed. 




% 



KAJIWARA PHOTO 



^,t 



^ "• 



MRS. FERNANDE RICHTER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 207 



MRS. FERNANDE RICHTER 

Lr\'ING in St. Louis, her adopted city since 1882, is one of the best 
J German poets in the United States. As a contributor to the leading 
German journals and newspapers here and abroad, Mrs. Fernande 
Richter, under the pen name of "Edna Fern," is well known. 

Several books have come from her pen, one of fairy tales called 
"Stories From Another World," published in 1898, and two more books 
of poems and two of short stories that followed soon after. Many short 
stories whicli have been printed since these publications will be issued 
later under the title of "Ungefiihr so wars." 

Born in Hildesheim, Hanover, Mrs. Richter was brought up on a 
large estate or "Guth" with her parents, Leopold Osthaus and Fernande 
von Wraede, where they lived until they lost their fortune and moved 
to America in 1881. 

In speaking of her native place Mrs. Richter says, if one will go 
back with her to that faraway land, over broad waters into the Northern 
flatlands, where there are rich meadows and fields of grain on the banks 
of a friendly stream, she can tell of the village where she was born — 
an only daughter after four sons. Their possession consisted of a farm 
which had come as an inheritance from her father's brother, "einem 
Herrn Kanonicus," who, after his spiritual duties were discharged, would 
spend his time with a turning lathe and twenty-four clocks, all of which 
he tried to make strike at the same time. 

There was also another attachment to this inheritance in the person 
of "Lisebeth," the uncle's housekeeper, who had tyrannized over him 
and whose very remarkable characteristics Mrs. Richter has so enter- 
tainingly detailed in a sketch called "Jungfer Lisebeth." There was also 
in Rossing, a little village or "Dorfchen," that lay beyond their farm, 
another interesting personage — the leader of the town — whom she barely 
remembers as a fair-skinned round little woman, having light curls 
arranged in heavy bunches over her fine little ears. This was a remark- 
ably energetic woman. Her ninth son she called "Nonus," and was 
very jealous of Fernande's little twin brothers; and she wished always 
for triplets — contrary to the women of the present day — to make her dozen 
complete. In her bath house, in winter, near the mill pond, she would 
have the ice broken and plunge in with her strong white limbs for a 
daily bath. The whole village she doctored out of her household medicine 
chest, and woe be to the one who did not recover quickly. The naughti- 



208 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I S 

ness of all cliildren, and particularly her own nine, she pronounced 
illnesses, curing them with drops and powders, and above all the patients 
were always put to bed until the sickness had passed away, which meant 
until they were good again, and, of course, cured. In the garden sur- 
rounding the beautiful home where this woman lived there was a large 
glass ball, in which was reflected, as Fernande then thought, the whole 
wide world, sky, trees, castles, birds, and all of which gave unlimited 
reign to her vivid imagination. 

The dwelling in which her parents lived was an unusual one, in 
that every previous owner had built additions without regard to the 
general outline, and having passed through the hands of many owners, 
who had left their stamp of convenience with no consideration for 
harmony, it was truly an unusual structure. Roomy and rambhng, with 
many hidden corners and mysterious long halls, surrounded by gardens 
of flower beds of gayest colors, thick bushes, high nut trees, hedges of 
currants and gooseberries, and small berry beds, kitchen gardens, orchards 
and potato fields, it was a vast kingdom in the fancy of this little maiden 
over which she reigned as a princess with her brothers and nurse as 
vassals. 

In summer the bushes were full of robbers, dwarfs and gnomes who 
were waiting for her and in the flower beds and grape vines were 
myriads of elfins and fairies ready to protect her. 

No wonder then that we have later in her life one of the loveliest 
of fairy-tale books ever written in either German or English. Private 
teachers looked after her early education which was followed by three 
years in a convent in Aix-La-Chapelle where two aunts were members 
of the institution. This was a very sad period of her life — the confinement 
of the convent being most depressing to her lively fancies and spirit, 
especially after such a happy, care-free life in her own home. 

The sorrows and cares of her after-life have never caused the naive 
distress of mind that she experienced in this transplanting of a life of 
freedom to the narrow confines of a convent home. However, she 
remained over two years, with another half year at a finishing school. 

After moving to America, and about five years before she married 
Dr. George Richter, who had been their family physician, she had never 
written for publication, but as she was unusually gifted in conversation, 
and her stories and anecdotes were so original and entertaining, the 
Doctor interrupted her while relating one specially interesting, saying, 
"Wait a minute; tell it to me with a pen in your hand." After some 
efforts she made a good story, and has found much pleasure in her 
writing, such happiness in the hours she has spent in creating, that she 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 209 

blesses the day that she took up this occupation, and has been writing 
ever since. 

She became at once a contributor to many German magazines here 
and elsewliere, and for years sent stories to "Ueber Land and Meer," 
"Lehrer Zeitung," "Milwaukee Herald," "New York Staats Zeitung," 
"New York Volk Zeitung," "Pioneer Calendar," and has written the 
criticisms for the German Theater and the Symphony Society of St. 
Louis for the German papers often in former years. 

She has also made addresses in public for the Free Thinkers' Society 
of St. Louis and Milwaukee, also for the Schiller Verein, her last subject 
for this society being "Gottfried Keller, the Swiss Poet." Mrs. Richter 
has been the secretary of the Schiller Verein for years, and her husband 
was the founder in 1896. This is a branch of the Schwaebischer Scliiller 
Verein in Germany. The founders and original members besides Dr. 
Richter were: Dr. Eniil Preetorius, Prof. Dr. Otto Heller, J. Widmann, 
Prof. C. G. Rathmann, Dr. Louis Soldan, Max Hempel, J. Toensfeldt, 
G. A. Finkelnburg, Dr. M. H. Starkloff', E. C. Winter and Konrad Nies. 

The Schiller Verein still exists. Professor Peter Herzog being the 
president for the year 1913, Mrs. Richter vice-president. Professor Haensler 
secretary and Mr. B. Stosch treasurer. 

Meetings are held each month at the Liederkranz Club and each 
year the members entertain their friends with a banquet. There are 
about 150 members. It is the one verein in America that is affiliated 
with the two German societies — the Schwaebische Schiller Verein in 
Stuttgart, which is a memorial to Schiller, and the Deutsche Schiller- 
Sif tung in Weimar, a benevolent association which pays yearly or life-long 
pensions, either as honorary remuneration — Ehrensold — or as benefit 
or gift to needing poets or writers and their families. Several times the 
Schiller Verein has succeeded in adding German-Americans to this list 
in Weimar, as in the case of the poets Zuendt, Neeff and Beningnus. 

Folklore is the basis of domesticity and love of the home of the 
German nation. No other exists around whose childhood there is so 
much done to develop the spirit of romance and poetry and music. Next 
to Shakespeare the Germans have produced the greatest poets. Mrs. 
Richter considers herself one of the modern German writers but her 
style is classic. She has studied Lessing and Goethe — particularly Lessing. 

In her stories she not only makes the characters interesting, but 
her little side comments are startlingly keen and original, or pathetic or 
humorous to the finest degree of shading. She aims to get the point, 
leaving out everything superfluous. One can not say she has a set style, of 



210 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L O U I 8 

the kind that on reading a story one might recognize it as that of Mrs. 
Richter. One of her critics compliments lier very highly on this accom- 
plishinent sajing there is a different rhythm in every poem for each 
subject. Her stories seem to be written without effort or strain, pure 
and limpid, the story running so glibly and smoothly and fascinatingly 
that one feels charmed and absorbed to the end. 

Dr. Richter, who for five years before he married his wife was 
really her teacher and gave her what might be called a course of literature 
and letters, says "her strength is never in the play of words and her 
funny characters are really funny." 

Mrs. Richter says her best stories have been written with tears. Not 
that they were so sad, or that she was unhappy while writing them, but 
because her imagination was constantly at war with the shortcomings 
of the written word. Even the most humorous little sketch has been 
almost a heart-breaking affair. And yet, after appearing in print, read so 
easy, as she says, "als wenn ich sie aus dem armel geschiittelt iiiltte." 

The great philosopher and physician, Gustave Theodore Fechner, 
writes "without work — deep, sincere, honest work — there is no joy to 
be had in this world. And just to work in this way for the joy and 
happiness of life, gives joy and happiness to striving mankind." 

Mrs. Richter has also written two plays — "Das Miidchennest" and 
"Die Bruecke." She writes well and speaks well, with a charming voice, 
sympathetic and soft. She is a woman rich in liigh impulses and emotions, 
and a power for good and true principles. Dr. George Richter is an ideal 
helper and companion as well as a well-loved husband. He is a physician 
of the older German set and a regular conti'ibutor to medical journals in 
tliis country and abroad. 




GERHARD SISTERS PHOTO 



MISS CAROLINE RISQUE 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 211 



MISS CAROUNE RISQUE 

MISS CAROLINE RISQUE, who has spent two years in Paris, both 
stuch'ing and working in her studio, was a sculptor of local fame 
before her journey abroad. While in Paris she studied in the 
Colorossi Academy for one year under Paul Bartlett and Inj albert. One of 
her most ambitious pieces of work modeled in her own studio there was a 
fountain which was honored by a place in the Salon in May, 1913. She 
sold many pieces of her work wliile abroad — one of them going to the 
home of one of the Ambassadors, and another finding its resting place in 
the Museum of New Oi-leans. 

Ever since she was a student at the Art School of Wasliington 
University she has found very ready sales for her work, beginning with 
commissions from her own teachers. A most interesting catalogue of 
photographed sketches, portraits and groups she has i-etained of those 
pieces of her work of which she has disposed. 

Decorative work is her ambition — fountains, gates, portals and man- 
tels are the things she wishes to work out in strong designs; objects and 
subjects in which she can be entirely original. Everything that one 
creates with the mind through the fingers she feels brings pleasure in the 
creating, and if one can bring others to recognize beauty in what, before, 
they saw nothing but a blank, then the chief aim of construction or 
creating is accomplished. 

The first time she sent a statue to the Salon in Paris it was accepted 
and one of the French papers commented highly upon it. She has 
exhibited for the Western artists in this country. Miss Risque wants to 
go back to Paris because she likes the life and the very noises of the city, 
and can obtain better materials there for her work. She does not believe 
in temperament or atmosphere, that is sometliing of one's soul. The 
artistic temperament is like any other, it comes out in work and should 
be let out properly; only when it is restrained does it give trouble. Then, 
again, talent alone will not do any good; one must have industry — that is 
one of the requisites of translating the ego impressions. An artist is some- 
what like a focusing point, he only wants to translate impressions, not to 
show anytliing else. 

If an artist is absolutely sincere, and has a mind to see, he will do work 
like nobody else. The impression of anything that comes through the 
brain is stamped with one's personality, and is like light coming through a 
stained-glass window; it is stained according to one's appreciation of the 



212 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L V I S 

subject and one's technic. To have the tenacity of purpose and the love of 
the work so one will spare no amount of pains or labor to get a thing done, 
combined with the best interpretation of form, beautj% etc., is what one 
must have for success. 

And then after this concentration and tireless effort, just as soon as 
the thing is a fait accompli, all interest is lost and one looks around with a 
new interest for another subject. Just like a cat witli little kittens, as soon 
as she teaches them to care for themselves they are no more a part of her; 
they do not interest the mother any more. 

Miss Risque would like to make things for people who are not under- 
stood, who are timid, and do not know how to look at beauty. Barrie 
does it in his way, and she would like to do it in another. Miss Risque 
would like to show people the way she sees them. Tliat is one tiling about 
studying art — if you take it in the right mood and the right time notliing 
seems ugly. 

So many people are beautiful — for their strengtli of character, for 
their physical strength, some for their expression, some for color, and 
others for form, and so on. The artist knows how to sliow this so others 
can enjoy it. Miss Risque favors especially arcliitectural work, yet if one 
day she is in the mood to draw an old woman pusliing an apple cart, she 
wants to do just that, and another day she might feel like modeling an 
angel, anything of beauty she may be attracted to. She loves to create, 
and with her skillful, beautifully modeled fingers fashions and forms 
a cherub or an ecorche with wonderful dexterity. 

Her hands are truly beautiful, shapely, strong, slim, and flexible. It 
is fascinating to watch her manipulate them. One knows by the looks 
that she can do something out of the ordinary. 

Miss Risque is in favor of suffrage for women because she believes in 
equality for justice's sake. It is an offshoot, she says, and not the aim 
of womanhood — and will not bring the millenium by a long way. It wiU 
be a good thing for women in the different walks of life and in many 
enterprises and professions when she will not have to depend alone upon 
the criticism and judgment of man. Women will be freer to work out their 
own ideas and plans, knowing that as much will depend upon the viewpoint 
of women as men for the verdict of success or failure. Miss Risque 
believes that the general impression will change of what Motherhood, for 
instance, means and may mean — not only will the mother caressing her 
child be painted but also the other side of the picture, her grief at losing 
her child when he leaves her to go for himself; and in a picture of a wreck, 
we will not have alone the picture of the heaving destructive waves, but 
the desolate homes. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 213 

The striving after some lacking sense in art is what Miss Risque 
thinks has led to the grotesque products of the futurists and cubists, whom 
she says are by-products of the spirit of unrest and revolution in modern 
art and are either crazy or insincere. They paint and model things that 
no one can tell what is represented or intended. In her opinion these new 
departures in art will not last. They arc merely fads. 

Miss Risque is not a faddist, nor is she possessed of any artistic tem- 
perament that makes her do queer things or say them. She has a quick 
mind, and vivid imagination, and talks well. She is small in stature, 
black hair and beautiful gray eyes, unusual in their size and particularly 
the expression. She is the daughter of Ferdinand W. Risque, born in 
Georgetown, D. C, and Aline Brooks, of Mobile, Ala. Two married sisters 
— Mrs. L. T. Chalker, of New York, and Mrs. John Blizard, of Ottawa, 
comprise the family. 

Miss Lockwood's kindergarten was Miss Risque's first school, for 
two years, and then Miss Jennie Harris taught her until ten years old. 
The next step was to the Marquette and High Schools, followed by several 
years at Hosmer Hall under Miss McNair. A course at the Art School 
with George Julian Zolnay prepared her for work in Paris, although she 
was told there, and has discovered for herself, that his methods of teaching 
could not be surpassed. Miss Risque will return to Paris later; but now 
for several years slie will make her home in St. Louis with her family and 
friends. 

She says when it comes to her work she wishes no leniency shown 
because it was done by a woman. She wants to stand or fall as an artist, 
and not as a "woman artist." 



214 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MISS ADELE SCHULENBURG AND MISS NANCY COONSMAN 

SCULPTURE has become more closely connected with our life and 
more intimate. Prince Troubetskoy made statues of society women 
with veils and hats, made high-heeled shoes and long-trained gowns, 
iconoclast that he is. Miss Schulenburg and Miss Coonsman belong to 
this school where sculpture has come down from the friezes into the 
drawing room. 

These young women studied under George Julian Zolnay, whose bust 
of Edgar Allen Poe, with his head bowed on his hands, is positively the 
greatest piece of original and poetic work that has gone out of St. Louis. 
It is in the University of Virginia, and was made for that institution, where 
Poe was a student. The despair, the mysticism, the intellect, the weak 
will, all are there in that head as they are in no portrait of Poe. Copies of 
it have been made in bronze, marble and terra cotta. 

St. Louis has surely sent out great sculptors headed by the immortal 
MacMonnies, who is now in Paris, and whose "Bacchante" is in the Metro- 
politan Museum of New York. This is a work of original grace and 
power as well as beauty. Ruckstuhl is another great success. 

Miss Adele Schulenburg maintains her studio on Grand Avenue and 
Morgan Street, and Miss Nancy Coonsman is associated in the work with 
her in the same studio. 

After finishing a four-year course in the School of Fine Arts of 
Washington University, Miss Schulenburg opened a studio in St. Louis for 
one year. Then went abroad to study in the private school of Lewin- 
Funcke, of Berlin. There she remained for one year and a half, touring 
Germany, Paris, Dresden, Munich, Italy and other places at the end of her 
studies before returning liome. Her chief desire was mainly to meet 
artists, study sculptures^old and new — and establish her ability as a sculp- 
tor in her own mind. 

The great strength and nionumental qualities of the modern Germans 
impressed her — such sculptors as Lederer, Marcuse, Klinsch, modeler of 
many nudes; Gaul, the noted animal sculptor; Tuaillon, who made the 
beautiful Amazon in Berlin, are making Germany a center for the plastic 
art. While among them are no geniuses supreme like Rodin, Meunier, 
there are men of surpassing abUity. There are also great men in the 
modern French style — Bartholome, Du Bois, Eugene Delou — but the 
Germans are strong and so vital. 




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KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS ADELE SCHULENBURG 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 215 

Hildebrand has a school for young sculptors, who hew out their 
compositions directly in marble, and it is for that purpose this method has 
been adopted. 

Coming home from Europe, Miss Schulenburg opened a studio where 
she has been working for about two and a half years, making portraits, 
sketches, has reliefs, statuettes and architectural designs. On the latter 
she is very busily employed at present. Her work is unusual in that there 
is a beauty of design which shows decided originality and careful and 
thorough artistic treatment. Particularly one of the sketches, full-length 
figure of a young girl languidly reposing in a garden chair, has attracted 
much favorable comment. Another, a portrait of Mr. E. Mallinckrodt, 
is a fine breathing likeness, and a group of the Rombauer children is life- 
like and clear. The "Incense Burner" is one of her best pieces and many 
copies of this have been made in bronze and terra cotta. 

Miss Schulenburg has been a regular exliibitor to the Pennsylvania 
Academy Annual Exhibition, and this year her work was given extra 
notice. 

When a little child she was eager to begin modeling but refrained, 
preferring to wait until she had finished school and could "begin right" 
by studjang under the best teachers of our art schools here and abroad. 
When a student her ambitions were all out of proportion to her ability. 
She dreamed in those days of colossal sculptured compositions that would 
express the great fundamental forces of humanity, sculptures that would 
reflect the unrest — the striving for beauty ideals of men — all sorts of 
symbolic representations, that is creative sculptures — the most ideal 
form. But she had to be content with realist poses, life portraits, which 
she found proved just as satisfactory, and gave one just as much joy as the 
craving to carry out impossible exalted ideas. 

Now she knows that real art is found — just like happiness — not in 
the expression of dreams, but on the highways and byways of one's daily 
path, in the fulfillment of ordinary duties, and that a true conception of a 
day laborer, or a homely group of old men and women, can express art 
in form as great as the finest symbolic monument or architectural 
achievement. 

Miss Schulenburg believes there is in America an unlimited field for 
great sculptural representation. In this melting pot of the vital forces of 
humanity a sculptor ought to find endless sources of appreciation. From 
the vast procession of men who go marching by, out of the depths of mines 
and foundries where strong men labor, from the gardens where children 
play, from the society of men and women of intellectual attainments — 
everj^vhere there is strength, there are struggles, there is effort, there is 



216 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 

beauty, there is mental growth — tangible and intangible sources of inspi- 
ration for the artist. These also represent Walt Whitman's poetic ideals. 

After we shall have realized that the sum and substance of our lives 
is not money-making alone, and that appreciation and encouragement are 
necessary to the sculptor who is trjang to interpret those ^dtal forces, then 
only, when this is accorded him, can he strive and grow and give expres- 
sion to the essence of his heart and soul, to train and finally produce and 
give to men the children of his dreams. 

Miss Schulenburg shares her stucUo with Miss Nancy Coonsman, 
although each fills her own commissions and has her individual line of 
work. They both model from life only. 

Miss Schulenburg is twenty-nine years old, and is the daughter of A. 
Schulenburg. She has two sisters and one brother. Of the German type, 
blonde, healthy and handsome, she is demure with a most charming 
grace of manner. Her mother was Miss Adele MalUnckrodt. 



Nancy Coonsman has won recognition for her skill in making 
portraits and modeling beautiful figures. Her specialty is portrait busts. 
She reproduces the likeness more faithfully than a photograph; one almost 
sees life glowing through the inanimate figure. 

Born in 1887 and graduating from the Central High School in 1906, 
Miss Coonsman took a four-year course in the School of Fine Arts of 
Washington University. In 1911 she was an honor student working with 
Mr. Zolnay. This privilege was only accorded those who show unusual 
talent. 

Five years ago Miss Coonsman says she could easily have told of her 
aims, ideals, but as she grows older the more complex — almost chaotic — 
her views become on just how to proceed and what success really means. 
She has wonderful enthusiasm along with her great talent to carry her on 
through the many disappointments and close application which her work 
demands. So far she has had splendid opportunities thrown in her path, 
by what one might call luck or chance, especially in the way of good 
health and the general recognition of her talent. With hardly a break 
she has been able to continue her studies steadily and calls time to work 
her most valuable asset. 

When night comes separating her from her occupation she wants to 
sleep it away as quickly as possible. Such energy must meet with success. 
She has exhibited in the Pennsylvania Academy, New York Academy of 
Design and Western Artists' Exhibition. 

To see Europe and its treasures is her ambition. Whether she will 
study under some sculptor in America or across the waters, she does not 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I 8 217 



as yet know, but is aiming to develop a style of her own and not copy 
that of any sculptor. Wishing to evade having any set style put at her 
door she wants to be free and unhampered in her mode of work, and 
believes that style is the artist's rut and a big effort must be made to turn 
aside from it. 

To handle all sorts of subjects is her desire, portraits that reveal some- 
thing more tlian the mere likeness of the individual — the character and the 
soul — the something that would interest a complete stranger in the work. 
That is the kind of portrait she is trying to make. 

For her lighter work, fountains, both for interior decorations and the 
garden, have always held her attention, and it is in this direction that she 
looks forward to much pleasure in visiting Europe, for it is said one can 
not move in these European cities without stumping one's toe on little 
gems in the way of playing fountains on street corners and all public 
places. Fountains are such joyful things; the running of the water 
always gives one a thrill whether it be in the wild forest stream or in the 
back yard of a city home. They are especially refreshing and of a never- 
ending source of interest in a breakfast or dining room; a few ferns and 
plants, some goldfish to add life, and one has an indefinite fund of enjoj'- 
ment. At every street corner there should be a drinking fountain — a well 
fountain — where fresh water gushes forth all the year round for man and 
beast, and these should be modeled artistically and beautifully. Miss 
Coonsman has placed a fountain in the MuUanphy Floral Shop, a center 
fountain with graceful cherubs, and is making another of quite preten- 
tious design for Mr. Randolph Laughlin's new home, "Lachlin," in St. 
Louis County. A little St. Louis girl posed for this. There are two figures, 
and hers is kneeling down on flat stones catching the water in a lily leaf, 
wliich she holds in her hand, as it trickles through the rock. 

Another ambition is to do large agricultural figures in a big conven- 
tional way, but here in St. Louis the need or call for such work does not 
come up often. 

It has always been in her thoughts to make some wonderful gi'oups; 
very vague she says they are now, but some day she will work tliem out. 
Some figures showing the biggest human attributes, the ones that were in 
the beginning, and shall last as long as men are men. 

Nancy Coonsman is the daughter of R. A. Coonsman and Nettie 
Hynson. After passing through the puljlic schools her mother influenced 
her to develop the talent which she early displayed, and which she herself 
possessed in a marked degree when young, but had never had the oppor- 
tunity of developing. Rodney Coonsman, her brother, is interested in 



218 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 

the financial sheet of a local newspaper, and his wife is an artist of 
considerable reputation. 

Miss Coonsman is quite young and has a very promising future. Her 
work has received much praise from the best sculptors and one needs only 
to see her portraits and sketches to realize what striking talent she has. 
Besides this she is a naive, simple, and sensible girl, with many admiring 
friends socially and professionally. She has had some experience as a 
teacher, as assistant in the Art School, private classes, and now regularly 
at Bishop Robertson Hall. 

Her last portrait of Ruth Felker is well handled. It is dignified and 
true to life. Another sketch of Eloise Wells is a charming piece of work- 
manship, as well as of Elsie Blackman and Georgia Cady. 

Miss Coonsman has been selected to execute the sculpture work for 
the fountain for the Kincaid Memorial to be located in the sunken garden 
back of the Public School Library, over a number of competitors. 

St. Louis will undoubtedly accord these gifted women the substantial 
recognition of their talents which they deserve, and their work will yet do 
much to adorn and decorate the homes, public buildings, parks and streets 
of our city. 




MRS E. T. SENSENEY 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L O V I S 219 



MRS. E. T. SENSENEY 

ST. LOUIS owes much to Mrs. Miriam Coste Senseney, whose efforts 
to make the food products of St. Louis pure and wholesome have 

been so ver>' successful. Probably no one person has ever done as 
much as she in the interest of pure food in St. Louis. Her knowledge is 
not theoretical regarding the production of food and food products, and 
the manner in which food filters through the various channels until 
it reaches the table of the consumer. It is the practical knowledge and 
determined efforts of Mrs. Senseney that have brought the Consumers' 
League into prominence and has made the "White List" sign a familiar 
one throughout St. Louis. 

The blue-and-white sign, which is emblematic of pure food, was con- 
ceived by her, and by her the food dealers were spurred on to value it as 
highly as they do. For several years she has been a member of the league. 
Many other women were members, and the meetings were always pleasant, 
and the women planned beautiful plans, but not a great deal of good 
was accomplished, nor were they very energetic in making investigations. 
Mrs. Senseney was chairman of the Pure Food Committee. She was 
anxious to do work that was really effective. 

In the course of events she was brought in contact with Frederick H. 
Fricke, State Food and Drug Commissioner. In the fall of 1913 "The St. 
Louis Republic" was conducting a campaign to make St. Louis one of the 
healthiest of large cities. Mrs. Senseney realized that publicity would 
help the movement. She gave up the privacy of her home and became as 
much of a food inspector as the Commissioner and as much of a newspaper 
reporter as the newspaper men who were privileged to work with her. 

Her campaign was well planned. She knew she would have to enlist 
the support of the public before she could succeed. She would have to 
interest the public before it would aid her. Therefore, she talked for 
publication, and allowed the camera men to make pictures of her while on 
the tours of inspection. She wanted to do her work thoroughly. 

It was her idea to make an investigation of the restaurants first. If the 
food in these was not clean and sanitary the public had a right to know. 
If a restaurant man did conduct his place in a sanitary manner the public 
had a right to know. She and Commissioner Fricke began with tlie 
restaurants. Backed by the laws of the State, they were denied admission 
in no place. 



220 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L O U I 8 

A denial would have availed naught, for the Commissioner would 
have called in the police. But in no instance was this necessary. 

Restaurants were inspected from cellar to attic. The ice chests were 
scrutinized and the methods of handling the food were given most careful 
attention. Mrs. Senseney talked with the employes and with the proprie- 
tors. She wanted to know how things were done. The sights in some of 
the places were revolting. In others she found suggestions that helped 
in the management of her own home. 

The splendor of a place made no appeal to her. To make each place 
she visited more sanitary and the food products better was her sole object. 
The unpleasant conditions found she did not gloss over when making her 
account to the newspapers, nor did she exaggerate when telling of the good 
ones. She told the truth about all places visited, and her stories carried 
the ring of conviction. 

A week after the bakeries were visited an improvement was apparent. 
The food producers and dealers knew they were to be inspected in turn. 
They knew their good points would be lauded and their bad ones held up 
mercilessly, that the public might be warned. They were anxious for a 
good rating. 

Extensive work was done in cleaning up. Most of the bakeries were 
found to be in excellent shape. But the few that were not sanitary were 
used as object lessons, and the candy-makers who were next visited showed 
that they had been learning of her work, and having made preparations for 
her coming, were in better shape than they had been for years. 

So it was down the line, butcher shops, groceries, boarding-houses, and 
everywhere that food was dispensed. Mrs. Senseney gave kindly sugges- 
tions, and even in the places she criticised most was invited to return 
to inspect the premises after the proprietor had been given an opportunity 
to make the improvements she and Mr. Fricke suggested. 

Shops that ignored the sign of the times lost hundreds of dollars in 
trade when the public learned the truth about them. Other shops that 
merited her commendation gained many new customers 

Mrs. Senseney became an authority on sanitation. Her counsel was 
sought and she was invited to visit other cities to tell of her work. 
Thousands of dollars were spent in repairing and improving conditions in 
food-dispensing establishments in St. Louis. She taught that it is easier 
and cheaper to conduct a place in a sanitary manner than it is to run it 
otherwise. And she frankly gave warning that if the places were not 
conducted in such a sanitary manner, prosecutions would follow. The 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 221 

splendid work of Mrs. Scnseney will last for years, even if she did not 
follow it up, and she has no idea of abandoning it. 

Mrs. Miriam Coste Senseney is the daughter of Paul Coste and the 
granddaughter of Felix Coste, one of St. Louis' most prominent citizens, 
who belonged to tliat earnest body of Germans giving time and enthusiasm 
for the preservation of the Union. At the breaking out of the Civil War 
Mr. Felix Coste was a member of the General Assembly. When Claiborne 
Jackson was elected Governor and fled to the South, Mr. Coste was one of 
that little band who stood firmly to principle in the face of the most trying 
and dangerous conditions. His name was continuouslj' associated with 
those of Daenzer, Preetorius, Hillgaertner, the Bernays, Olshausens. 

His son, Paul Coste, father of Mrs. Senseney, occupied a distinguished 
position at the bar. Mrs. Coste, her mother, was Emma Jansen, whose 
parents came from Frankfurt, Germany. Mrs. Senseney is quite young, 
of tlie blonde type, a beautiful matron. Her husband is Doctor Eugene T. 
Senseney. 



222 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O D I S 



MISS MAY SIMONDS 

MISS MAY SIMONDS is the reference librarian of the Mercantile 
Library in our city. For students, teachers, writers, speakers and 
men in various professions, beginning with their school days, she 
does the most careful research work. Fifteen years of this experience with 
the Mercantile Library has made her an expert. 

For use with the regular hand books, guides and reference works, 
she has compiled a reference catalogue made of the memoranda of subjects 
she has worked up. It is hoped that Miss Simonds will have this put 
in book form that other librarians may have the benefit of these many 
years of research work along unusual and necessarily interesting branches 
of study. Nothing pleases her so much as to work up an intricate line of 
research and the day is either marred or made on which she fails to dis- 
cover or does unearth new material on the given subject. 

Johnson says "Learning is of two kinds — we know a thing or we know 
where to find out about it," and Pope says, "Index learning turns no 
student pale, but holds the eel of science by the tail." And Miss Simonds 
knows where to "find out about" what others want to know. 

For instance, an inquiry was made by a member of the library on 
reading an essay of Macauley on the impeachment of Warren Hastings. 
He noticed that a lady present at the trial was spoken of merely as "St. 
Cecilia." He was anxious to know who was meant and could find no clue. 
In reading the paragraph over herself Miss Simonds found that Sir Joshua 
Reynolds had left his easel to be in attendance at this trial. She found 
that he had painted a picture of Mrs. Sheridan as St. Cecilia, and in the life 
of the Sheridans she is referred to as St. Cecilia because of her beauty and 
the renown of the picture. This, of course, explained who was meant. 

Sometimes Miss Simonds experiences no difficulty in tracing up 
subjects, and again has looked many times with no success, and then 
when weeks or months have elapsed would come upon the very informa- 
tion which she sought so earnestly. Such information was then recorded 
in her special reference library which is quite extensive. 

It is an interesting fact to know that half of the people who go to her 
for this research work really don't know themselves what they want. One 
man wishes information on "Vandalism" and after many hours of work 
she comes to find that what he really wants to know about is the Commune 
of France at the time of the Revolution. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS MAY SIMONDS 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L O U I 8 223 

That, of course, changes her line of investigation. Again a woman 
wants notes on Esculapius, and after hours of work with her the woman 
says "I see nothing here about the bust of him made by Thorwaldsen." 
Of course, by referring to a much later history on Thorwaldsen she finds 
a reference to the bust of Esculapius. By a system of cross-questioning 
she really must draw out what is wanted and says until this was done much 
time was lost in unnecessary reference. She calls it a clearing of the mind 
and a help to people in stating what is wanted. But this fault does not 
lie only with those wanting assistance in the work of research. It is 
found ever^'^vhere, in the courtroom, where it is most important to get 
clear statements; in the lecture room, in teaching, in short, it is a rare 
gift to be able to express oneself clearly and concisely. Sometimes Miss 
Simonds is called on to give assistance in the way of technical research, 
but not very often. 

The primary object in a catalogue for either large or small library is 
to get at what one wants in the simplest way. A dictionary catalogue. 
Miss Simonds says, therefore, where one finds on the surface in alphabet- 
ical order, either author, subject, or title, is the ideal catalogue. 

Miss Simonds has written sketches of George Bingham, the artist, 
several of whose paintings adorn the walls of the Mercantile Library. 
One for the Missouri State Historical Association was of the painting by 
wliich he is best known throughout the Southwest, "General Order No. 11, 
or Civil War on the Border," which recorded the final outcome of a series 
of events of almost unparalleled, and certainly of an unsurpassed, violence 
in the history of the Civil War. It was the order of General Ewing which 
furnished the text of Bingham's picture. "I will make him infamous on 
canvas," was what Bingham said at the time of painting it and his intention 
was to "render odious the man and his measure." Her descriptions of tliis 
and other of his paintings is well written. Miss Simonds has also trans- 
lated poems from the French of Francois Coppee. 

As a result of the efforts of Robert K. Woods and John C. Tevis, 
whose conversation in the fall of 1845 resulted in a determination to 
establish a Mercantile Library, a meeting was held December 30th of the 
same year in the office of Mr. Tevis with eight men present — seven of 
whom were merchants. This one man who was not a merchant was the 
editor of the "St. Louis Republican," Colonel A. B. Chambers. They 
appointed a committee to draw up a constitution and by-laws, which were 
reported to a called meeting of merchants and others January 13, 1846. 
Steps were taken at that meeting, after the association was fully organized, 
to obtain subscriptions and funds. Subscribers to the number of 283 were 



224 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 

admitted when the library was opened in rented rooms on Main Street. 
Within a year a move was made to larger quarters in Glasgow Row. In 
1850 steps were taken to erect a building especially for library purposes, 
and a Mercantile Library Hall Company was organized with a capital of 
$50,000 on May 2, 1851. This was divided into shares of $10,000 each. 
Soon after a building was erected at a cost of $100,000 on the lot, costing 
$25,000, on which the library now stands. In 1855 it was ready for occu- 
pancy. Again in 1870 it was found to be inadequate, and as the old 
building was non-fireproof, in 1884, under the presidency of Robert S. 
Brookings, the project was carried to success of building the splendid 
edifice which now stands as a monument to his wisdom and work. The 
new building cost about $400,000. Mr. Henry G. Isaacs was the architect. 
The style is Romanesque and it is treated in broad and massive manner. 
At the laying of the corner stone June 1, 1887, an impressive address was 
made by Marshall S. Snow. The library is proud of some very valuable 
books. Its chief treasure is its alchemical collection, one of the finest in 
the world, the bequest of Mrs. Henry Hitchcock. It is being added to by 
the librarian wherever he can find a treasure. 

Miss Simonds was born in St. Louis, the daughter of John Simonds, 
whose family came here in 1804, one of the first English-speaking families 
in the territory, and Susan Kennett. She finds much pleasure in her occu- 
pation as Reference Librarian, being particularly well equipped for this 
in the way of knowledge of languages, great persistency in delving into 
research work, a smooth and gentle demeanor in dealing with applicants 
for all manner of information on so many different subjects, and not least 
her systematic record of all special information which this line of endeavor 
has brought out. Miss Simonds is a storehouse of information, and when 
her face is animated in recounting her interesting experiences or when she 
is speaking on subjects that she has worked out to her satisfaction, she is 
very interesting and entertaining. 




SARONY PHOTO 



MISS SARA TEASDALE 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I 8 225 



MISS SARA TEASDALE 

Have I not made the world to weep enough? 
Give death to me. Yet life is more than death; 
How could I leave the sound of singing winds. 
The strong, sweet scent that breathes from off the sea, 
Or shut my eyes forever to the Spring? 
I will not give the grave my hands to hold. 
My shining hair to light oblivion. 
Have those who wander through the ways of death, 
tThe still, wan fields Elysian, any love 
To lift their breasts with longing, any lips 
To thirst against the quiver of a kiss? 
Lo, I shall live to conquer Greece again, 
To make the people love, who hate me now. 
My dreams are over, I have ceased to cry 
Against the fate that made men love my mouth 
And left their spirits all too deaf to hear 
The little songs that echoed through my soul. 
I have no anger now. The dreams are done. 
Yet since the Greeks and Trojans would not see 
Aught but my body's fairness, till the end. 
In all the islands set in all the seas, 
And all the lands that lie beneath the sun. 
Till light turn darkness, and till time shall sleep. 
Men's lives shall waste with longing after me. 
For I shall be the sum of their desire, 
The whole of beauty, never seen again. 
And they shall stretch their arms and starting, wake 
With "Helen" on their lips, and in their eyes 
The vision of me. 
******* 

I wait for one who comes with sword to slay — 

The king I wronged who searches for me now; 

And yet he shall not slay me. I shall stand 

With lifted head and look within his eyes. 

Baring my breast to him and to the sun. 

He shall not have the power to stain with blood 

That whiteness — for the thirsty sword shall fall 

And he shall cry and catch me in his arms. 

Bearing me back to Sparta on his breast. 

Lo, I shall live to conquer Greece again! „ _ _ , , 

— By Sara Teasdale. 

MISS SARA TEASDALE has written two books of poems. The first, 
"Sonnets to Duse," and the next, "Helen of Troy and Other Poems," 
published by G. P. Putnam's Sons — of which a second edition has 
just been published — show that she is an artist of the highest order. 

She is unusually gifted with the power of lyrical expression and has a 
wonderful ability of transmitting her impressions in chaste and simple 
style. A fine and enchanting rhythm runs through every poem and the 
versification is as symmetrical as it is exquisite. 

Sensitively alive to every impress of the beautiful in nature, her 
descriptions of the various phases of love — its exaltation, depression, joys, 
pains, and yearnings — are intertwined and beautified with apt illustrations 



226 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V J S 

from that source, and all is told in language forceful and clear, with a strain 
of Oriental fervor. 

Lyric poetry is the poetry of the heart. The greatest of lyric poets 
among women was Sappho, the noted historical woman of Greece, "The 
Tenth Muse;" she was not only regarded in that light, but was the founder 
of the first woman's club of which we have any record, and devoted herself 
to the elevation of her sex. The result was not only immortal fame, but 
an influence that has carried the love of poetry and of intellectual and 
artistic pursuits down to the present day. 

One of the ablest critics says of Sara Teasdale: "Not since the days 
of Elizabeth Barrett Browning has any woman distilled a stronger essence 
of femininity into her verse. Although Miss Teasdale's work denotes a 
frank absorption in woman's great pre-occupation, it is not passionate 
in the common sense of the term, nor is it sentimental though it deals 
almost exclusively with sentiment." 

The titles of the principle poems in the book, "Helen of Troy," 
"Beatrice," "Sappho," "The Portuguese Nun," "Guinevere," and "Erinna," 
give a suggestion of the author's line of interpretation. 

Just as men seek after fame and honor and wealth, just so some 
women have sought for love, and Miss Teasdale has the courage to give 
full expression to such thoughts. 

"Helen of Troy" predicts that she will "live to conquer Greece again." 

"Beatrice," unrestrained at the approach of death, says of the man who 

"was content to stand and watch me pass:" 

"I think if he had stretched his hands to me. 
Or moved his lips to say a single word, 
I might have loved him — he had wondrous eyes." 

And in "Sappho:" 

"Ah, Love that made my life a lyric cry. 
Ah, Love that, tuned my lips to lyres of thine, 
I taught the world thy music, now alone 
I sing for one who falls asleep to hear." 

Again in the "Portuguese Nun:" 

"But when she passes where her prayers have gone. 
Will God not smile a little sadly then. 
And send her back with gentle words to earth 
That she may hold a child against her breast 
And feel its little hands upon her hair? 
We weep before the blessed mother's shrine, 
To think upon her sorrows, but her joys. 
What nun could ever know a tithing of? 
The precious hours she watched above His sleep 
Were worth the fearful anguish of the end. 
Yea, lack of love is bitterest of all." 

Miss Teasdale published her first book in 1907 and the second in 1911. 
She intends to wait several years before bringing out another, preferring 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 227 

to take time to ^^ew life from a different angle so as to have a definite 
change of attitude. 

Mr. Stanley Braithwaite, the well-known literary critic in the East 
for American as well as English poetry, has placed Miss Teasdale's 
second book of poems as one of the seven best of the year. A number 
of composers have set her poems to music for solos and trios, and they 
have been published in many magazines — "Harper's," "Century," "Scrib- 
ners," "Forum," "Bookman," "Lippincott's," "Craftsman," "Poet Lore," 
"Mirror," "Smart Set," and other periodicals. 

"The Crystal Cup" was a poetic prose fantasy — her first effort — and 
was published in "The Mirror" in 1906. Since then she has been writing 
steadily. 

Miss Teasdale was born in St. Louis and is the youngest child in a 
family of four, and very much younger than her brothers and sisters. 
She was a sensitive, shy little girl, and it was not easy for her to make 
friends with other children or strangers. For this reason she did not 
attend school until nine years of age, although she had memorized many 
verses and stories and showed an unusually bright mind before that time. 

Mrs. Ellen Dean Lockwood was her first teacher, and to a dreamy, 
timid, little girl she was the ideal instructress, giving each child her 
individual attention and care. Without her encouragement Sara Teasdale 
feels that she could not have accomplished what she has. This capable 
woman understood her sensitive disposition and drew her out and on 
so that she might develop the poetic nature with which she was endowed. 
All the students in the school loved their teacher because she instructed 
and amused them at the same time. The first child who would bring 
in a maple leaf would have its name entered in the "Sharp-eyes" book. 
Then there would be little stories told about the maple tree and the 
family to which it belongs. Paintings would be made of the leaves and 
every point of beauty brought out. The little girl who found the first 
violet, or pussy willow, or any spring flower, had her name entered in 
the book, and more interesting classifications followed. With sensibilities 
so refined and intuitions so keen, Sara Teasdale naturally possessed an 
ardent love for studies of this kind. 

There was an aquarium with fish, flowers in pots, and drawings and 
paintings, and the children were in every way taught to observe and 
enjoy the beauties of nature. Miss Teasdale can not express her love 
and gratitude to this good woman in high enough terms, and believes 
only under her simple and gentle instruction could she have overcome 
these early tendencies, and developed her talents. After this she studied 
a year at Marj' Institute, and then several more at Hosmer Hall, where 



228 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 

she graduated under Miss Matthews. She loved this teacher, too, and 
appreciated the honor conferred on her when she was requested to write 
the class song for graduation day. 

One year after she was out of school the first number of the "Potter's 
Wheel" was made up. Miss Teasdale's first contribution was "Transla- 
tions from German Lyric Poets." This magazine was brought out each 
month for thirty-three months. The members of the staff were young 
women who were ambitious to write, model, paint or design. Each 
contributor was expected to do one page each month — a poem, story, or 
musical or dramatic review. These were bound together in book form 
about eighteen inches square with an artistic cover. Only one copy was 
made and passed around to each member and her friends. Thirty- 
three were done in this manner, and they are really works of art. Many 
of the ambitious young contributors have been very successful. Miss 
Caroline Risque maintains a studio in St. Louis, and holds a high position 
as a sculptor. The Misses Parrish have succeeded as photographers — 
they have received a great many medals for their work both in America 
and Europe, and their pictures are distinguished by singular truth to 
the subject as well as originality in treatment. When the editions were 
discontinued the thirty-three numbers were distributed among the mem- 
bers — and Miss Teasdale treasures the copies which fell to her lot very 
highly. Some of the others on the staff were Celia Harris, Vine Colby, 
Petronelle Sombart and Edna Wahlert. 

Sometimes Miss Teasdale writes three or four poems in one week, 
usually these are framed in her mind — that is, the short ones — before 
she writes them out. Reading some book or seeing something grand and 
wonderful in nature will be an inspiration to give her emotion external 
form. At certain times slie finds it easy to express her feelings and is 
not tired from the effort, but the longer poems, the almost wholly 
intellectual conceptions, are written with more deliberation than the 
brief lyrics which are purely emotional. 

Not many of her lyric poems are over twelve lines, and she says 
when written they are either good or not good, that she can not work 
over a poem as one would over prose; it would seem labored and must 
be spontaneous while she is in the right mood. And one can not take 
up this writing as one would any other — set a time to go about it. The 
very brief work is not such a strain, but the blank verse in the first 
part of her second book was somewhat arduous, as she was careful to 
have the expressions reflect her finest thoughts in a simple and sincere 
manner. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I 8 229 

Of course, Miss Teasdale loves her work, and she delights, too, in 
the companionship of literary folks. She has spent a part of several 
years past in New York because she can be in touch with her co-workers, 
and she frankly says she "adores" the East, and especially New York, 
because of its tall buildings, cosmopolitan people, and the general atmos- 
phere. It is her intention to spend several of the winter months there 
every year. She is a member of the Poetry Society of America. Traveling 
is her ideal recreation. The past summer was spent in Italy. 

Miss Teasdale is about the average height — not stout and yet not 
slender — with Titian colored hair and splendid brown eyes, those clear 
deep eyes that can be so expressive. She understands the blending of 
colors in her selection of dress. She is only twenty-nine years old and has 
accomplished much; her future work will be anticipated with interest. 

The following is one of her gems: 

"You bound strong sandals on my feet, 
You gave me bread and wine, 
And bade me out 'neath sun and stars, 
For all the world was mine. 

Oh, take the sandals off my feet, 

You know not what you do; 
For all my world is in your arms. 

My sun and stars are you." 



230 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 



MRS. M. LOUISE THOMAS 

LENOX HALL, a high-grade resident and day school for girls and 
i young women, was established by Mrs. Louise Thomas, the principal, 
in September, 1907. The architects who were chosen for the great 
new Cathedral designed the new Lenox Hall, in University City, and it is a 
perfect type of home for a girls' school. It is early Enghsh in type, and 
the entire building, together with its location — giving a broad range of the 
open country — leaves nothing to be desired in providing ideal surroundings 
for the students. 

The principal, Mrs. M. Louise Thomas, is the daughter of Judge 
Thomas A. Russell, who was for some years a judge of the Circuit Court in 
St. Louis. 

On coming to tWs city to establish a school, a name could not be 
decided upon, and it was while walking with her father, discussing the 
question, that they came upon Lenox Place — a beautiful residence portion 
of the city. "Here" she said, "is a name, suitable, musical and short, and 
if it stands for someone great and good, we will adopt it." Referring to 
the encyclopedia it was found that James Lenox was an American 
bibliophilist and philanthropist, founder of the Lenox Library in New 
York City for public reference, built in 1870. Later this was combined 
with the Astor and Tilden Libraries as the "New York Public Library." 

Born during the war in Columbia, Mo., and coming to live in St. 
Louis while a little girl, Louise Russell was educated in the public schools 
and graduated from the High School. The graduating exercises were 
held in a hall so spacious as to make it difficult to hear the essays, and the 
entertainment naturally became very monotonous to the audience. Miss 
Russell said to herself, "when my turn comes I will make them hear me," 
and she did. Her clear and well-modulated voice at once attracted the 
attention of the guests and she was well rewarded, for the applause was 
so great as to call for an encore. That was the beginning of her success 
as a speaker. Her gift was much in demand in public and social life. 

Miss Russell attended the State University at Columbia, where she 
won the gold medal awarded by the Press Association at their annual 
meeting for the greatest excellence in oratory. This was the first occasion 
wliich presented itself for asserting her belief for equal rights for women. 
The boys preferred to have two gold medals awarded, one for them and 
another for the girls, making the contests separate and apart. An indig- 
nation meeting was held by the girls. Having been subjected to the same 



230 NOTABLE W O H E N OF S T. L O U I 8 



E 



MRS. M. LOUISE 1HOMA5 

ENOX HALL, a Iiigh '::rr!dr- nsMitrn -jnd (Jay achool for girls and 
young women, was ouw*- TKiniias. the pi*incipai. 

in September, 1907. 1 for the great 

new Cathedral designed th- ^.y. and it is a 

perfect type of hoir,< for , ish in tjpe, and 

the entire biiil giving a broad range of the 

open 1 . Hi providing ideal surroundings 

for tliL 

The J is the daughter of Judge 

Thomas A. Rr. ndge of the Circuit Court in 

St. Louis. 

1., ,1 :iiiiiu I'oiild not be 
er fatlier, discussing the 
at- upon Lefiox i beautiful residence portion 

of lin ciiy. iitic ' ■' ible, musical and short, and 

if it stands for some<! ^. »• will adopt it." Referring to 

the encyclopedia it ' .lames Lenox was an American 

bibliophilist and pliilanthrupist, founder of tlie Lenox Library in New 
York City for public ■ 'uilt in 1870. Later this was combined 

with the Astor and Tih .. ....... ,irs as the "New York Public Library'." 

Born during the war m Columbia, Mo., and coming to live in St. 
Louis while a little girl. Louiae Russell was educated in the public schools 
and graduated from the • chool. The graduating exercises were 

held ii ■ '' '' ■ racious ke it difiicult to hear the essays, and the 

en^^rl urally J- cry monotonous to the audience. Miss 

Ri hei-sclf, "when n»v turn comes I will make them hear me," 

and > ■ clear and v. .IKmoduiated voice at once attracted the 

atlfciiti «*s and she was well rewarded, for the applause was 

so great as l<. «n encore. That was the beginning of her success 

as a speaker. H< i s much in demand in public and social hfe. 

Miss Russell ail ' '• Slate University at Columbia, where she 

won the gold medal . .- '" the Press Association at their annual 

meeting for the greatest c in oratory. This was the first occasion 

which presented itself for asserting her belief for equal rights for women. 
The boys preferred to have l> ' " n)eda1s awarded, one for them 

another for the girls, making :. tests separate and apart. An ^ 

nation meeting was held by the girls. Having been subjected to thf - 




MRS. M. LOUISE THOMAS 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 231 

rules they could see no reason lor discrimination, wanting to come in on 
an equal footing on this competition as well as on the examinations. The 
rules were made over and the privilege granted. The winner was Miss 
Minnie Louise Russell, now Mrs. Thomas. She believed then, as she 
does now, that all women should be permitted to enter any field of labor 
or study for which they feel fitted. 

While Mrs. Thomas was married every luxury and comfort was hers, 
but when it became necessary to support herself and two daughters, she 
obtained a position to teach in Hardin College, Mexico, Mo., where she 
could keep her children with her. There she established the course of 
lectures to girls which she calls "Round Table Talks" and which are con- 
tinued in her school. Not being able to reach each girl individually in the 
classroom, she gave them the privilege of coming to her at stated times 
to talk over questions and matters which worried or puzzled them, such 
as morals, ethics, rules for social life, attitude toward those who were 
inclined to bad habits, etc. 

Remaining in the school for six years she felt that conditions made it 
advisable to enter a field of work where her ideals for girls' education 
could have freer scope. Two offers were made her, one to take charge 
of a girls' school in Montana, and another in St. Louis. She refused both — 
entertaining the idea of establishing such a one as would enable her to 
carry out her plans unrestrictedly. About that time Miss Matthews, 
who had been a very successful principal of Hosmer Hall in this city, 
died, and she felt that this was her opportunity for establishing a school 
for girls. 

Without a pupil registered or one promised, she went ahead and 
opened Lenox Hall, engaging a splendid faculty and arranging a course of 
study covering all grades of college preparatory work; also selected a 
graduate of Pratt Institute for a full course in domestic science; established 
a full art course under competent teachers, and engaged instructors for 
piano, voice and violin. 

It was a daring thing to do, but she looked into the future and believed 
there would be a demand for such a school in this growing metropolis. 
Success came from the start. Every year it was necessary to add to the 
capacity of the institution, several buildings being rented to accommodate 
the resident pupils, until from the old home on Taylor and McPherson, the 
last move was made to the beautiful new building in University City, 
planned and devised in every detail by Mrs. Thomas herself. Some 
discouraging experiences were hers after deciding to build this new school; 
she went to bankers, trust companies, rich women, and to everyone whom 
she thought might be influenced to build such an one as she would require. 



232 NOTABLE WOMEN OF a T. L V I S 

but not a single word of encouragement, satisfaction or assistance could 
she obtain until Mrs. E. G. Lewis, the president of the "American Woman's 
Republic," interested her husband, and he made it possible to carry out 
her plans. 

Lenox Hall accommodates thirty-seven students and offers all the 
advantages of a country home to its pupils while enjojing the many oppor- 
tunities for culture of a school in a large city. 

The aim of Mrs. Thomas is to establish a relation of friendship between 
teacher and pupil, as well as to develop ideals which will be of lasting 
influence in building up a cultured and refined womanhood. In large 
institutions general classifications and uniform demands are imperative, 
but in the small private school it is possible for each pupil to have such 
individual attention that her instruction is adapted to her especial needs, 
and her mental and physical growth stimulated and encouraged by a 
healthful and normal process. 

It is impossible to cast all minds in one mold, to measure all by one 
standard. Each individual is a separate entity with individual insufficien- 
cies and needs, and ought to have training suited to such needs, also the 
attention that awakens dormant talent and the power of right thinking 
which determines right living. 

Lenox Hall is affiliated with our State University, Washington 
University, Wellesley, Smith, and other coUeges of the East and South 
admitting women. Much individual work is done teaching students to 
analyze, systematize, and correlate their work; suggestive talks are given 
on the value of concentration, accurate and independent thinking, sustained 
attention, etc. 

The course of study prescribed by Mrs. Thomas is elastic and the 
methods of teaching vary each year according to age, development, tastes 
and interest of the pupils. She believes that "what we teach has higher 
ends than merely being taught and learned," and holds that the supreme 
end of education is the formation of character, therefore all subjects are 
dealt with vitally and with relation to the life of the individual pupil, 
whose sense of responsibility is thus awakened and gradually developed 
so that the foundation is laid upon which to build a future, well-ordered, 
satisfying life. Mrs. Thomas lays much stress upon the moral as well as 
the religious training of the girls under her care. 

Right thinking as well as right living is the basic principle of character 
building. Truth, "from within, out," sincerity, lofty ideals, and unselfish 
sympathy with one's fellow beings is the spirit she tries to inculcate. 

Realizing the importance of definite training of the social instincts 
and the necessity of affording maturing womanhood an opportunity to 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I 8 233 

exercise the natural tendencies of her social being, Mrs. Thomas indorses 
various forms of entertainment by which tlie young girl may learn the 
grace and charm which characterizes "gentle womanhood," and which 
give every opportunity for enjoyment, instruction and means of acquiring 
ease and grace of manner in conversation. She believes that social training 
is essential in the development of poise, and in the cultivation of the 
faculty of being interested in things — the best things. It is the means 
whereby the facts of scholarships are translated into terms of life and the 
individual developed into an active, efficient social unit. Just as growth 
is secured by cultivation so is development made sure by expression. 

Social training is the means for the expression of education; it is the 
opportunity for "applied culture," and is as essential a factor in the develop- 
ment of an effective personality as is the storing up of facts which in them- 
selves make but a "dead scholarship." Mrs. Thomas also advocates the 
study of languages as being a decided advantage to every woman. 

The editor of "World's Work" issued a Hand Book of Schools in 1912 
as a guide to parents considering the school question. Mrs. Thomas was 
requested to contribute one of the two articles allotted to schools for girls 
only; the others being written by such men as professors of Columbia 
University, editors of magazines, presidents of well-known schools, etc. 
She has contributed frequently to magazines and periodicals, both prose 
and poetry, and one of the poems which she sent out a few years ago as a 
New Year's greeting to the patrons of the school was adopted by the 
president of the Mothers' Congress of Texas to send to members of the 
different branches throughout the State as her greeting for 1913, being 
printed very neatly in booklet form. 

It is the custom of the principal of Lenox Hall to entertain, at 
intervals, house guests of distinction and recognized culture, giving the 
pupils the opportunity of coming into close personal touch with men and 
women whose wealth of experience and achievement is an inspiration. 
Many of the principal educators of Eastern colleges, as well as authors of 
note, have enjoyed this courtesy — among them Dr. Taylor, president of 
Vassar College; Ruth McEnery Stuart; Bertha Kunz-Baker; Mrs. Florence 
Howe-Hall, daughter of Julia Ward Howe; Belva A. Lockwood; Samantha 
A. Huntley; Mr. Alfred Tennyson Dickens. 

As an educator Mrs. Louise Thomas ranks among the best. She is 
highly cultured, and is gracious and charming in manner. Her strong 
personality endears her to all of her pupils. 



234 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 



MISS CAROUNE G. THUMMEL 

MURDERS, assaults and other deeds coming under the head of 
crimes against the person can not be atoned for by prison 
sentences." 
"Missouri must awaken to a stronger sense of duty if she would rank 
in the world as a State with correct laws." 

"Prisoners are not considered as human and are treated one as badly 
as the other." 

These are some of the ideas of Miss Caroline Thummel. For three 
years she has been forging to the front in the practice of law, having been 
a graduate of the Benton Law School, of which the very able George L. 
Corlis is the dean. With the interest of unfortunates at heart, she urges 
that consideration be given the fact that we are all human beings, and 
have a sense of appreciation. 

In an address before the Woman's State Bar Association, Miss Thum- 
mel stated that "for persons who had committed crimes by destroj'ing 
property, and those who had committed crimes against other persons, a 
similar sentence was unjust." It is her aim to establish as near as possible 
a law that will be for the humane interest of human beings, and she has 
framed a law which she has presented to the Legislature. Once it was 
thrown out, but she says she will make changes and keep on presenting it 
until passed. Miss Thummel has based her bill on facts derived from close 
contact with the law, saying the law does not provide adequately for certain 
offenses. "According to the present criminal laws, crimes against persons 
and crimes against property are largely classed together, and are subject to 
the same punishment. Those who commit crimes against property can 
make restitution — money repaid and property restored. Crimes such as 
murder, assault and other crimes against the person can not be atoned for, 
and persons committing such crimes are so abnormal that they should be 
segregated and forever kept from repeating the offense. It is beyond the 
law to provide adequate remedy for personal injury or loss of life through 
crimes of another. When one man or corporation has a person punished 
by law for defrauding, or for deliberately stealing, they simply get revenge. 
The money or goods are not restored, and, so far as the man or corporation 
is concerned, he has gained nothing. It is claimed society is improved by 
the deterrent effect; but society can be improved only by improving the 
character of the individual. Incarceration has utterly failed to achieve 
the result. The effect of our criminal law uijon the character of those 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MISS CAROLINE G. THUMMEL 



ROTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 235 

who have paid the penalty is so exactly opposite from that designed by the 
law that ex-convicts are always under police espionage and are objects of 
suspicion immediately upon the commission of every new crime. There 
is no justice in the present penalties. Many guilty persons are freed 
through technicality. A certain man is serving a sentence for six months 
for stealing twentj'-five cents, while another is serving the same sentence 
for stealing three thousand times as much. Each man should have been 
made to earn and repay exactly what he stole, with interest, and to pay the 
costs; then he should be allowed to go free. Present laws are more likely 
to make anarchists than anything else. 

"We should take cognizance of the fact that criminals are sick men- 
tally and are morally depraved, and that whether the criminal tendency is 
the result of heredity and environment, the law should seek a remedy for 
the ailment. Its aim should be to cure the disease. Confinement and 
notoriety under unhealthy conditions is the best that is done for a person 
within the custody of the law. His failings are exposed to the world, his 
delinquencies are advertised, and thus a hatred for his countrymen and his 
country are fostered. He is humiliated, scorned and punished, but he is 
never compelled to rectify the wrong he has done. The chief end and aim of 
all laws should be to make better citizens. In all cases of oflfense where the 
wrong suffered can be reduced to a money value; that is, in all crimes 
affecting property, the convicted person should be sentenced to labor at 
the regular wage rate until he has earned a sufTicient sum to reimburse 
his victim and pay the costs. Under the present criminal laws, when the 
prison door swings open to discharge a prisoner who has paid the penalty 
imposed by law, it is the same thief who leaves as was taken there. 
Another crime which we do to one guilty of offense is to gauge his sentence 
by his past life. If the prisoner at the bar has previously committed a 
crime and atoned for it under the law, he receives a more severe sentence. 
This is putting him twice in jeopardy for the same offense." 

The above ideas were embodied in a bill presented to the Legislature 
a few years ago. Commenting on it. Senator Alroy S. Phillips said: "It 
is an admirable, wise and humane measure, but our present ideas are not 
sufficiently advanced to enable the bill to be understood and appreciated." 

Miss Thummel has been very successful in investigations of the treat- 
ment given the workhouse prisoners, and is very active and enthusiastic 
in every reform movement for the benefit of suffering humanity. Miss 
Thummel lectures before the law class at the City College of Law and 
Finance. 

Because the St. Louis Bar Association, composed of men, has barred 
women lawyers from its membership, nineteen attorneys of this city have 



236 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 

organized the "Woman's Bar Association of the City and State." Its educa- 
tional policy will include the further study of Federal, State and Municipal 
Law. The vice-president, Miss Thummel, is of the opinion that women's 
clubs and organizations would be spending their time very profitably if 
they would study law. 

Miss Thummel was born in Phelps County, Missouri. She graduated 
from St. Louis High School and Teachers' College, St. Louis, to which she 
came with her parents while an infant. Her father died while she was 
very young. She taught school while attending Benton Law School for 
four years and was admitted to the bar in 1908. She was admitted to 
Federal practice in September, 1910. Her mother was Miss Mary Gilliam, 
of Richmond, Va., and her father was Gerhardt von Thummel. She has 
one brother, William, who is a civil engineer. Miss Thummel is quite 
young — about thirty-six — she doesn't look masculine; is of a very dark 
complexion and lively manner. Miss Thummel is, of course, a believer in 
woman's rights. She announces, too, with much pride, that she likes to 
wash cups and saucers, and recalls as one of the most satisfactory compU- 
ments ever paid her that of an old German in her neighborhood, who was 
known for being very grum. He said: "Miss Thummel, I admire you." 
Her first thought was that he might have heard her singing "Die Wacht am 
Rhein," but to her astonishment he explained that she "scrubbed her steps 
better than any woman in the neighborhood." And so she has tried to do 
everything that comes her way — just the very best she can, and be as happy 
about it as possible. 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. HARRY E. WAGONER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 237 



MRS. HARRY E. WAGONER 

MRS. HARRY E. WAGONER, best known for her active charitable 
work, especially as the president of the St. Louis branch of the 
National Plant, Flower and Fruit Guild, lias scattered much sun- 
shine among the poor and afflicted. This guild has for its motto "When 
we can and what we can." There is not one eleemosynary institution in 
the city of St. Louis that the members of this societj% headed by Mrs. 
Wagoner, do not visit to make donations of fruit, flowers, magazines, 
delicacies for the table, clothing, etc. 

This work is not done spasmodically, but a plan is followed out 
whereby these articles are distributed regularly, and particularly on anni- 
versaries and holidays. Mrs. Wagoner has a very capable committee 
working with her who understand how to go about the division of gifts, 
and make it as much of a pleasure to themselves as to the recipients. For 
instance, in 1913, twenty-one thousand bunches of flowers were distributed, 
thirty six bushels of fruit, sixteen gallons of strawberries, five hundred 
glasses of jelly, hundreds of magazines, two hundred potted plants, and 
different articles of clothing, such as shawls, stockings, and handkerchiefs, 
Christmas boxes and bags by the hundreds, and a great quantity of tobacco. 

One of the interesting branches of work this summer — 1913 — was to 
distribute seeds to children to plant back-yard gardens, open-lot gardens, 
and window boxes. This has been done on quite an extensive scale. 
Shaw's Garden gave liberally of plants ready to be set out, and the seed 
companies were very generous. The results have been really astonisliing, 
and eight prizes were awarded to the best arranged window boxes. Miss 
Florence Putnam has charge of this department. Some of the other 
women who are most active in assisting Mrs. Wagoner, and who hold the 
important offices in the local organization, are Mesdames Frederick Kreis- 
mann, James McCourtney, H. H. Wagoner, H. H. Evans, U. L. Clark, 
William Huppert, Relle Forse, Hugh Romanoski, A. A. Flanders, and E. J. 
Kramer and Mrs. J. Rossman. 

Mrs. Wagoner is one of those women who are especially adapted to 
this sort of work; she is enthusiastically interested in all charity work, 
but has made this line the beneficiary of her particular endeavor. The 
ministration of the mentally and physically afflicted is one of the noblest 
callings for any woman. If one has ever been to the Poor House — now 
called the City Infirmary — for which let us be thankful — on one of the 
visiting days, and has seen with what anticipation the guild women are 
awaited, it would not fail to make an everlasting impression. 



238 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 

In one of the long barracks where the men are domiciled, they come 
forward with a look of the keenest anticipation, waiting for the share of 
tobacco which they know will be given them along with pencils, pads of 
paper, shoe strings, knives, etc. The tobacco companies have been most 
liberal with Mrs. Wagoner, and this is really more of a treat and a comfort 
to the men than anything else could be either in the way of clothing or food. 
Then in the woman's department potted plants are put by each bed, and 
a little basket of sewing materials with a box of cake, candy and fruit, also 
quilt pieces and little ornaments for the hair and dress. In the consump- 
tive ward sunshine and angel cake are their chief delicacy. The patients 
realize the hopelessness of their condition, and to make their last hours 
a little happier or easier is worth much more than the trouble of carrying 
one of these cakes out to the Infirmary. 

On the grounds there is a separate department for moving pictures 
for those who are able to walk around, and the gardens offer opportunities 
for exercise and a satisfactory sense of usefulness to those who are strong 
enough to occupy themselves. These vegetable plants are furnished by 
the thousands from the City Workhouse gardens. Mrs. Anderson, the 
wife of the superintendent, is the "Good Angel" of this institution. 

In the various hospitals the flowers, fruits and magazines have proved 
an endless source of amusement and comfort. Mrs. Wagoner goes to 
much trouble to collect these articles, and with her good judgment knows 
just where to distribute them to the best advantage of the inmates of the 
different homes. 

The day for women to sit at home and drudge is at an end. There 
are so many conveniences for doing housework, that if a woman cares to, 
or has the talent, she may engage in outside enterprises and yet discharge 
the duties of her household successfully. Women are going to have an 
outlet for their progressive ideas, and while a great deal of condemnation 
is brought down on their heads because of their clamor for suffrage, it is 
really the need on their part for expression of advanced thought and action 
beyond any restricted allotment, that is at the bottom of it. 

Mrs. Wagoner has been the vice-president and recording secretarj' of 
Chapter 0, "P. E. O.," an organization of women formed at Mt. Pleasant, 
Iowa, by seven girls, which has been in existence for more than forty 
years. Their purpose is philanthropic and educational. The meaning of 
the letters "P. E. O." is known only to the members. 

As a young girl, Mrs. Wagoner was a prominent member of the 
McCullagh Dramatic Club, of which Gen. Wm. T. Sherman was president, 
and Mr. Wayman T. McCreery, secretary. Mrs. Wagoner played the 
principal parts with Augustus Thomas, William Beaumont Smith, Guy 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O U I 8 239 

Lindslej', and others who have since gained fame. She took the leading 
part in one of Mr. Thomas' first plays, "The Cattle King," and has success- 
fully managed many dramatic entertainments given for charitable pur- 
poses. She has also assisted in raising money for the Young Women's 
Christian Association, as well as taken part in carnivals given for the 
benefit of hospitals, asylums, etc. Her sketches of the French, German, 
Italian, Negro, and child dialects are very skillfully interpreted. 

Mrs. Wagoner is an athletic woman. She has won several prizes as a 
golf player at the Glen Echo, Algonquin, and Country Clubs, is an expert 
swimmer and diver, and very much at home on horseback. 

Mrs. Adeline Palmier Wagoner is a daughter of Louisa Palmier and 
Frederick Myers. She was born in St. Louis, and graduated from the 
Central High School and the Normal. Was elected class historian, repre- 
sentative, and wrote and delivered the class poem. 

In 1890 she was married to Harry E. Wagoner, son of Mr. and Mrs. 
H. H. Wagoner. They have one son, Stanley Blewett, a graduate of Yale 
College, where he has been most prominent during the four years, having 
won many gold medals in all Eastern college meets. 

Mrs. Wagoner's mother was the granddaughter of Jean Beaulieu (dit 
Palmier) a captain of the War of 1812, and the great-granddaughter of 
Michel Beaulieu, captain of the first regularly organized militia of Illinois, 
and Angelique Chauvin, daughter of a French officer of Fort de Chartres, 
Illinois. Angelique Chauvin Beaulieu was born in 1742, educated at 
Quebec, and in 1760 married Michel Beaulieu, making her home in 
Cahokia, where she became a social leader on account of her superior 
education and accomplishments. Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, said 
of her, "She was the director-general in moral and medical matters; the 
peacemaker of the village, whose society was sought by old and young 
for their improvement." 

Mrs. Wagoner's mother, at the age of seventy-six years, makes her 
home ^vith her daughter, Mrs. Walter Dray, of Chicago. Mrs. Harry 
Wagoner is a strong, handsome woman; she is winning in her manner, 
and kindly disposed to all. She is generally admired and very popular. 



240 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MRS. H. H. WAGONER 

AS a pioneer worker in the missionary field, Mrs. H. H. Wagoner stands 

J-\ among the first who interested themselves in this noble cause in 

St. Louis. In the first Auxiliary of the Women's Foreign Missionary 

Society, organized west of the Mississippi River, she was one of the charter 

members. This was founded April 4, 1870. 

With the Central Mission organized September 13, 1884, she has been 
the vice-president for twenty-nine years; this is now called the Boyle 
Memorial Center, and is inter-denominational. The Industrial School 
conies under the management of this mission. 

She also acted as first president of the W. C. T. U., which was organized 
in January, 1880, by Miss Elizabeth Greenwood, of Baltimore. 

Mrs. Wagoner was identified with the work of the Woman's Christian 
Home, located at Fifth and Poplar Streets, and was a member of the Board 
of Managers. 

As the president of the "White Cross Home," she served several years. 
This was a rescue home for young girls, which was first named the 
Magdalene Home. Later it was sold and is now the Russell Home for Old 
Ladies. 

Many donations to Foreign Missions have been made by and through 
her efforts, and memorials and scholarships in India and Japan bearing 
her name stand as a glowing tribute to her untiring energy in this field. 

The Central Mission was organized in 1884, with Mrs. Wilbur Boyle 
as president; Mrs. H. H. Wagoner, vice-president; Mrs. Elmer Adams, 
treasurer; Miss Capen, secretary; Mrs. Sue Owens, missionary; Mrs. 
Andrew Sproule, Mrs. Hodgman, Mrs. Given Campbell and Mrs. Price as 
managers. The work was industrial and Sunday school. Soon a church 
was organized, and in a short time a new building erected on Eleventh 
Street, between Franklin Avenue and Morgan Street. After the death of 
Mrs. Boyle, three years ago, the name was changed to Boyle Center in 
her honor. The work has been enlarged with the Rev. Clyde Smith as 
pastor and Mrs. Sue Owens as missionary. 

When the Women's Christian Temperance Society was organized 
thirty-tliree years ago, Mrs. Wagoner was elected president; Mrs. Mary A. 
Clardy, secretary. Only a few ladies responded at first to the call, as the 
work was new. This was carried on by the distribution of literature and 
evangelistic meetings held in churches and missions. The work soon 
progressed, and Mrs. Wagoner was followed by Mrs. T. C. Fletcher as 




KAJIWARA PHOTO 



MRS. H. H. WAGONER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 241 

president. Other unions were organized in different parts of the city; a 
district association was formed. Mrs. E. B. Ingalls, Mrs. A. S. Cairns, 
Ellen Foster, Clara Hoffman and other noble women were active 
supporters. 

Miss Elizabeth Greenwood was the organizer of the first branch of 
the W. C. T. U. at Eleventh and Locust Streets. She was for years the 
national evangelist. Their work was to hold evangelical meetings in the 
interest of temperance at the Bethel Mission and of supporting patients in 
a sanitarium on Cass Avenue, where persons were placed to be given 
treatment for the alcoholic habit. Among the many benefited by tliis 
institution were several ministers, who, after re-entering the field cured, 
did untold and far-reaching good for the cause. 

Mrs. Wagoner finds great satisfaction in the fact that she has been 
spared to see the Women's Foreign Missionary Society grow from the 
small organization which numbered about fifteen members to a circle that 
has enlarged and reached every civilized country. In St. Louis now there 
are about ten societies, with three hundred or more members, each holding 
monthly meetings in homes of the members. 

The first branch in St. Louis met at Union M. E. Church at Eleventh 
and Locust Streets. Mrs. Jennie Fowler Willing was the organizer; Mrs. 
T. C. Fletcher, wife of ex-Governor Fletcher, was the president; Mesdames 
Clinton B. Fisk, E. 0. Stanard, J. N. Schureman, H. H. Wagoner, B. B. 
Bonner, Kennedy and Mrs. Woodburn were charter members. Mesdames 
Jones, Wagoner and Schureman are the only charter members living. 
The Des Moines branch — outgrowth of the meeting held in Union M. E. 
Church — has a membership of about 20,000. In 1912 more than $75,000 
was collected to carry on the work in India, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico, 
Italj', Africa and other distant countries. The membership dues are two 
cents a week and a daily prayer. 

The first work of the society' was to assist in building a schoolhouse in 
Tokio, Japan, for the education of girls. When completed, one scholarship 
was taken by the society and the girl selected was educated and graduated 
from the school with honors. She married a Christian young man and 
now has a fine family of eight children. Tlie girl was named Sophia 
Wagoner, after Mrs. H. H. Wagoner. 

The Des Moines branch, comprised of Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas, 
has forty-seven young lady missionaries in difTet'ent parts of the world, 
managing schools, colleges, hospitals, where many thousands of girls are 
educated in industrial and all lines of work tending to make them useful 
homekeepers, teachers and nurses. 



242 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I S 

Mrs. T. H. Hagerty has been active in this work since 1872, and for 
twenty years served as the corresponding secretary for the St. Louis Con- 
ference. Mrs. H. H. Wagoner has been district president for many years, 
and has an interest in different schools in India and China. The first 
secretary was Mrs. Pierce; Mrs. Lucy Prescott was the first corresponding 
secretary, and it was called the "Western Branch." Mrs. William A. 
Jones was the first treasurer. When the headquarters were transferred 
to Des Moines, the wife of Bishop Hamline was made president. 

At Thaudaung, India, Burmah, stands a chapel called the "Wagoner," 
which was a personal donation of Mrs. H. H. Wagoner to the mission, and 
at Jubblepore, India, is a school called the Johnson School. Mrs. Wagoner 
has supported a scholarship there for twenty years. The college at Cal- 
cutta, India, is named in honor of the founder. Miss Isabelle Thoburn. 
This was the first establislied for women in that country. Mrs. Wagoner 
has taken a special interest in all of these movements and has been identi- 
fied with the missionary work in St. Louis for over forty years. 

She has made addresses before the different auxiliary branches of the 
societies and to the delegates. There had been no meeting of any 
importance in tliis field of endeavor that Mrs. Wagoner, by her earnest 
appeals, has not induced and influenced to give liberal support to the cause 
put before them. 

The Women's Home Mission assists in the support of schools in the 
Highlander work, the mountaineers in Kentucky, North and South Caro- 
lina — schools for the education of the poor girls in the South, and also of 
the colored children, and work among the Indians. Mrs. Wagoner has 
been district vice-president of this for over twenty years. 

At Gibson and Taylor Avenues a Memorial Chapel was erected by 
Mr. and Mrs. H. H. Wagoner and fitted out complete as a donation to the 
Methodist Church. This was done in honor of Mr. H. H. Wagoner. 

The White Cross Home was one of the first homes for rescue work 
for the girls. Their object was to provide shelter and a home for young 
girls who were in trouble. Mrs. D. W. Haydock was president of that 
organization for many years. Mrs. Wagoner and Mrs. Hagerty also served 
in this capacity. Mrs. W. W. Culver took an active interest in the home 
and gave it her loyal support. 

This Home was a small house located on Garrison and Thomas Streets, 
and could accommodate twelve girls. Other institutions for this purpose 
were established and the ladies turned their interest to the Russell Home 
for Old Ladies, their first money coming from the sale of the White Cross 
Home. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 243 

Mrs. H. H. Wagoner was born in 1834, at Eaton, Ohio. Her maiden 
name was Sophronia Wilson. She attended school at Oxford Seminary, 
Ohio, after wliich she taught school for several years at Cincinnati, and 
there married Henry Hoover Wagoner in 1861. He was a native of Mary- 
laud. They came to St. Louis in 1866, and since that year Mrs. Wagoner 
has stood first in the ranks of those noble women who devote much of 
their lives to missionary and charitable work. 

Mrs. Wagoner has two sons, George and Harry E. She is, at the age 
of eighty years, active and healthy, attending the meetings regularly and 
holding the different offices in these societies as at their organization. 

Mrs. Wagoner is much beloved; her life work has been in the interests 
of beneficent and good causes, and the result of her long and continued 
efforts will live for many and many years after she has passed away. 



244 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 



M 



MRS. VICTORIA CONKLING- WHITNEY 

■RS. VICTORIA CONKLING-WHITNEY is the best known practi- 
tioner at the St. Louis bar in the feminine realm. She says she 
studied law in self-defense, and urges aU women to devote some 
time to this most helpful branch of education. Having had some litigation 
in the courts over private property and finding that her deplorable 
ignorance of the law was likely to cause her to lose it, she took up the 
study and worked eight and ten hours a day until she passed the examina- 
tion. Mrs. Whitney says law is a difficult study; yet women would be 
successful because they are painstaking and conscientious and wUhng 
to put in unflinching application to study. Her opinion is that women's 
clubs and organizations would be spending their time more practically 
and beneficially by studying law instead of taking delicatessen doses of 
Browning and Mendelssohn. Women left with estates to manage or those 
owning property are entirely at the mercy of their attorneys. Mrs. 
Whitney believes that law ought to be a part of the curriculum of everj' 
school as much as mathematics and literature. It would make woman 
less dependent and give her self-confidence. 

Mrs. Whitney's ancestry includes a distinguished line of lawyers and 
statesmen on both sides, and therefore her love for law and politics is 
an inherited one. She was first admitted to practice in Kingman, Kan. 
The examining board consisted of three lawyers appointed by the Judge 
of the Circuit Court; when it was announced in court that the report 
was ready to be made, the Judge suspended all proceedings, the chairman 
commending her examination to the women of Kansas as worthy* of 
their emulation. After coming to St. Louis, Mrs. Whitney went before 
tlie St. Louis Court of Appeals, and was the first woman ever admitted 
before it. Later the Supreme Court of her adopted State convened in 
special session to admit her to practice, adjourning immediately there- 
after, when the entire bench Avith the Chief Justice offered congratula- 
tions. She was later, while on a business journey to Washington, intro- 
duced by the Hon. Belva Lockwood to the Supreme Court of the District 
of Columbia, and they also convened in special session to admit her to 
practice. After this she went before the Supreme Court of New York, 
being presented by Gen. Roger A. Pryor, himself a foremost member 
of the Supreme Judiciary. Her papers were prepared, and she took the 
oath the same day — a distinction not often conferred on applicants. 

Mrs. Whitney engaged in practice with her brother. Judge Conkling, 
in Missouri, but l>efore locating in St. Louis went to Washington and 




KAjrwARA PHOTO 



MRS. VICTORIA CONKLING-WHITNEY 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L V I 8 245 

was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, 
and the Department of the Interior. 

One of her experiences was as a teaclier in the Boonville pubhc 
schools, and for a year a member of the faculty of the State University, 
Department School of Mines, in Rolla, Mo. 

Mrs. Whitney believes in equal sufl'rage, and as president of the 
regular Missouri Equal Suffrage Association, has conducted four cam- 
paigns at Jefferson City for a constitutional amendment giving the women 
citizens of Missouri the right of franchise, herself drafting the amendinent 
which went unanimously to engrossment, but expired in the Senate with 
six hundred other biUs at the close of the session. Mrs. Whitney, with 
the chairman of the committee, had the honor of being invited to address 
the House of Representatives in Committee of the Whole, an honor which 
had never been conferred on any woman save Dorothy Dix. 

In 1900, in New York City, at a meeting of leading and representative 
women held at the Park Avenue Hotel, Mrs. Whitney' helped to organize 
the National Legislative League, of which she was elected a member 
of the executive committee. To Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake, as leader, 
much credit is due for the passage of the many laws for the benefit of 
women now on the statute books of that state. The Missouri State 
Suffrage Association became an auxiliary to the National Legislative 
League in its organization and has so remained. It is identical with and 
the successor to the first Equal Suffrage Association formed by Mrs. 
Virginia Minor in 1864, including in its membership such names as James 
Yeatman, B. Gratz Brown, Mrs. Minor Meriwether, Mrs. Beverly Allen, 
Rev. W. W. Boyd, Rev. John Snyder, Mrs. H. H. Wagoner, and was the 
first organization to propose a movement to place women as members 
of the St. Louis School Board. During the Cuban War the association 
took an active part in the work for the soldiers. The association also 
sent delegates — Dr. H. T. Wilcox and Rev. John Snyder — to the first 
meeting held to organize the present Good Roads Association that has 
since grown into national importance. 

Mrs. Whitney's practice has been in the civil courts. For a number 
of years she had in view the formation of a woman's bar association, 
and on July 14, 1912, organized the Woman's State Bar Association, when 
she was .elected president. The meetings have been held at the Planters 
Hotel. It is the first organization of its kind in the West, and the object 
is educational and for mutual improvement in the profession. An annual 
banquet is held, and eminent jurists are from time to time invited to 
give addresses before it. Among the laws it favors is to appoint a duly 
qualified woman lawyer for Judge of the Juvenile Court; in a strong meas- 



246 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

ure it also favors prison reforms. Among its honorary members are Hon. 
Belva Lockwood, A. M., LL. D., Ph. D., author of the bill admitting 
women to practice in the United States Supreme Court; Mrs. Marilla 
Ricker, who has an immense practice in Washington, and is the only living 
woman who ever sat on the woolsack beside the Lord Chief Justice of Eng- 
land; Mrs. C. S. Foltz, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney of Los Angeles, and 
our own lamented Phoebe Couzins. Mrs. Whitney was the vice-president 
of the Missouri International Peace Society, organized by the Princess 
Wizniewski (nee Hugo) and the Baroness Von Suttner. 

Mrs. Whitney was born near Columbus, Oliio. Received her earliest 
education in the university town of Westerville. On the death of her 
father, David Conkling, an attorney, her mother, also an attorney, brought 
her family to Missouri, whither a brother had preceded them, and they 
made Missouri their home. Both her parents were of Colonial ancestry. 
She is of the seventh generation, on her mother's side, from John Alden and 
Priscilla De Molineux, who, with her father, mother and brother, all 
French Huguenots, came to New England with others of that immortal 
band, in the Mayflower, in 1620. Wm. De Molineux was the tenth, and 
John Alden the seventh signer of the "Mayflower Compact," the first 
declaration of equal rights ever promulgated. The Conklings came to 
New England in 1638. That they and their descendants were loyal to 
the principle of freedom is shown by the fact that there were 145 stalwart 
men enrolled in the army and navy of the Revolutionary War. On her 
mother's side she numbers both the Adams, John and John Quincy, the 
Poet Longfellow, Bryant, Major-General John Mason, for thirty years 
Commander-in-Chief of the Colonial Armies, and hero of the Pequot War. 
Major Daniel Mason also. Mrs. Whitney is eligible to each and every 
Colonial and Revolutionary Society in the United States. 




GERHARD SISTERS PHOTO 



MRS. FRANCES CUSHMAN-WINES 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I 8 247 



MRS. FRANCES CUSHMAN-WINES 

MRS. FRANCES CUSHMAN-WINES is in the real estate business, 
the only woman who is a member of the St. Louis Real Estate 
Exchange. Beginning in the office of A. H. Fredericks, she gained 
in the year she remained with him much practical information and a good 
training for a successful business career. For the next ten years she was 
connected with the firm of A. A. Fischer Real Estate Company. Mr. 
Fischer was a builder, and constructed his own houses. He sold, wliile 
Mrs. Wines was associated with him, one thousand homes, and she states 
that in all the contracts made not one out of that number was foreclosed 
by a mortgage. The houses were represented as they really were — the 
best for the money. She uses her good judgment in many ways and 
principally in never trj'ing to make a sale to parties beyond what she knows 
they can afford to buy. 

Her special work is decorating homes. When possible buyers for a 
new house are found she visits their old homes, gets their ideas as to 
furnishings, etc., and then tries to match the decorations in the house 
which she wishes to sell them both to their taste and means, and in this 
way rarely ever fails to make a sale. She has assisted in designing and 
decorating homes in Portland, Westmoreland and Parkview Places, as well 
as other desirable residence portions of the city. 

While with Mr. Fischer Mrs. Wines acted as his sole agent. She now 
conducts a general real estate business of her own, being located in the 
office with Mr. A. H. Fredericks, with whom she began this work a 
number of years ago. 

It is her firm belief that young married people can have no better 
object or interest in life than to buy a home, furnish and maintain it first, 
before interesting themselves in other investments or luxuries. The 
apartment house has taken the lead with many young folks with whom 
housekeeping is a matter of secondary importance, or in some cases not 
of very much consequence, and the automobile, Mrs. Wines finds to be 
much worse than the apartment house. Many people will sacrifice any- 
thing to own an automobile — mortgage their property, sell their homes, 
live in small apartments or flats, and except for a place to eat and sleep, 
fairly live in their motor cars. Surely the motor cars have revolutionized 
the present mode of living with many classes. 



248 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 

Mrs. Wines is doing much earnest work to prevent those owning 
homes from disposing of them for luxuries. She advises every woman to 
own her home, and cautions every woman against signing away her share 
of a home until she has another in its place. "Let it be ever so humble, 
there is no place like a home," is her motto. 

When a woman has a home free from encumbrance she can always 
find a means of self-support if she is willing and earnest, while one with 
none frequently finds herself in sore straits. 

Being a member of the Real Estate Exchange secures for Mrs. Wines 
a closer luiion and more coi'dial co-operation among the real estate agents 
of the city. Its object is to advance the interests of the city and its inhabi- 
tants by promoting public improvements, an equal and just system of 
taxation and assessments, the proper enforcement of the ordinances 
designed for the protection, convenience, and welfare of the public, devis- 
ing and promoting measures for beautifying the streets, improving archi- 
tecture of houses, and generally to advocate and support all measures 
calculated to improve the city, and character of its buildings and streets, 
also to elevate the dignity and repute of the real estate agents and their 
methods of business. Another object is to promote just and honest 
methods of conducting business, discourage secret and improper dealings, 
provide a place for public sales, and the publication of facts and statistics 
useful to themselves and to the public. As yet there has been no woman 
on the Board of Directors or Committees, or acting as an ofTicer of the 
Exchange, but that is only a question of time as it has been in other 
enterprises. 

The etliics of the real estate business adopted by the National Associa- 
tion of Real Estate Exchanges are clearly outlined to all its members. 
They are expected to live up to them strictly and be open and above board 
in all their dealings with clients and each other, respecting rights, giving 
information and assistance, never deprecating other agents, advertising 
nothing but facts, and so on, and Mrs. Wines has tried to live up to each 
and every one of these rules. 

She has built for herself a small home, which she considers a model 
in every way. She has no family except her husband, Abner G. Wines, 
who is with the American Type Foundry Company. 

Mrs. Frances Cushman-Wines was born in the historical town of New 
Lisbon, Ohio, where her maternal great-grandfather, a Revolutionary 
soldier, and her grandfather, who fought in the War of 1812, settled in 
1803. There her father. Dr. Sylvanus Cushman, a noted inventor, was 
married to Miss Elmira Shawk. Frances Cushman was also married in 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I 8 249 

New Lisbon. Dr. Sylvanus Cushman was a descendant of Thomas Cush- 
man and Mary Allerton, a daughter of Isaac Allerton. The charter made 
between King James, represented b^' the Right Hon. Edmond Lord 
Sheffield, and Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow for themselves and 
their associates, gave Puritans a right to use certain lands. The first 
sermon ever preached on New England ground was by Robert Cushman, 
December 12, 1621, at "The Common House" of the colony on Leyden 
Street at Plymouth. There is a monument in the Plymouth Cemetery to 
his memory, and the copy of the sermon and the charter are justly 
prized by all Cushman descendants. 

Mrs. Wines resided in Detroit, Chicago and Cleveland before coming 
to St. Louis eighteen years ago. It was then she took up the real estate 
business. Having been an invalid for a number of years, she was advised 
to interest herself in open-air work, and be relieved of the care of a home, 
especially as she had no children. She went to Mr. Fredericks to place her 
house on sale and he found from her conversation that she understood 
many things about houses in the way of conveniences, decorations, etc., 
and proposed that she take up work of that nature. She did so and has 
been entirely restored to health, has an object in life outside of the ordinary 
duties of "nursing furniture," etc., and has kept herself interested in things 
worth while, as well as the satisfaction of being able to guide young people 
and often older ones in doing what is best for themselves and their families. 

Outside of her regular work she has one fad — collecting rare stones. 
In her traveling she keeps an eye open for gems out of the usual, and 
consequently is possessed of many beautiful specimens, in cut, size, liistory, 
beauty and value. She has a very good idea of color values, and even in 
her gowns the gems are matched or harmonize. White-haired, sweet and 
engaging in manner, Mrs. Wines is the kind of woman who could make a 
success of whatever field of endeavor she might choose. 



250 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 



MISS JANE FRANCES WINN 

MISS WINN is sometimes called the "dean of newspaper women" 
in St. Louis, because, with possiblj' a few exceptions, she has 
been connected longer with the newspaper work of the city than 
any other woman. 

But she became a journalist long before coming to St. Louis, for 
she was editor of the grammar-school paper in her native town of 
Chillicothe, Ohio, when but twelve years of age. The "paper" was written 
on pages of foolscap with the name "Excelsior," with many flourishes, 
written each week at the top of the first page by the teacher of the 
system of Spencerian penmanship then in vogue. The young editor wrote 
all the editorials, padded the want columns and wrote a poem, as she 
called it, each week; but the boys of the class, because of its frequent 
reference to fruits and flowers, called it "vegetable" poetry. One of the 
so-called poems she thought verj^ fine, it having been inspired by the 
history lesson on John Rogers and his family of nine children. It began 
"Thou zealous zealot," but was generally skipped by the discriminating 
readers of the little paper. 

Like many women jouralists. Miss Winn served her apprenticesliip 
as a teacher. She says it is certainly a good apprenticeship to teach the 
"sciences" as teachers in small towns are required to teach them — to 
go, for instance, from a class in chemistry, with an involved experiment, 
to a class in physiology with a cat to be dissected, and then hurry to a 
class in botany with plant analysis and field work, with possibly a 
physical geography class for the last hour. Such a teacher may have to 
teach a class in physics; and in time of stress Miss Winn has had to take 
charge of a latin class or one in algebra. In fact, such a teacher is 
supposed to know a little of everything that has to be taught in such 
a school. 

To keep up with the work of her classes Miss Winn spent the 
summers in study, taking courses for five summers at Harvard University, 
and spent one summer at the Starling Medical College in Columbus, Ohio, 
taking a private course in chemistry with Dr. Curtis B. Howard, who 
is now a well-known toxicologist. 

She made something of a revolution in the teaching of chemistry 
in the little High School, deciding that some practical work in analyzing 
a few simple salts would be of inore value to pupils than dwelling so 




KANDELER PHOTO 



MISS JANE FRANCES WINN 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 251 

much on chemical formulas, but the board of education would not supply 
a laboratory for qualitative analysis, so Miss Winn and the boys of the 
chemical class made one of their own. With jack-knives they made 
test tube holders, and out of ink bottles constructed alcohol lamps, and 
never was there so much enthusiasm in a class. One of the young men 
has since become the head chemist of a big manufacturing concern in 
Chicago — Dr. Frederick Dunlap, formerly of the Agricultural Department 
at Washington, famous in the Wiley controversy, and another is Dr. 
Clarence Vogel, of St. Louis. 

Miss Winn made a study of the oaks of Ohio and wrote a monograph 
on the subject, which brought her the honor of being elected vice- 
president of the Ohio Academy of Science for the year 1895. 

But it was always, however, her desire to write, and a series of 
articles on botany, illustrated by one of the boy pupils in this class, was 
her introduction to newspaper work in the city of St. Louis. The young 
man has since become the cartoonist of the "Columbus Dispatch," and 
is known by the shamrock attached to his signature, his name being 
William Ireland. Neither of them ever expected to go into newspaper 
work at the time. 

Miss Winn was one of the founders of the Century Club of her 
native town — Chillicothe, Ohio — now quite a civic force in that city, one 
of the others who was a charter member being Mrs. Wilson Woodrow, 
now well known in literature. The club, of which she was the secretary 
for three years, sent Miss Winn as a delegate to the general federation 
convention in Denver in 1898, and stopping off in St. Louis to meet 
the editor of the paper to whom she had been sending her botany stories, 
she was, to her great delight, engaged to take charge of the club column 
and to do the many things that come within the province of a special 
writer. 

Journalism is by all means the best profession for a woman if her 
tastes are literary and her talents fall short of authorship, so says Miss 
Winn, and she is very enthusiastic about her work. Journalist is a 
generic term, there being many species of the journalist in these days, 
with more and more of a tendency to specialize. 

That end of journalism which is concerned in gathering news is, of 
course, the most important, as, while the editorial appeals to the thinking 
few, the great mass makes up its mind from the news story, and preparing 
such accurate accounts and sending them out to the world is the legitimate 
business of the reporter and the newspaper, and Miss Winn thinks that 
there are few lines of work more responsible or dignified than that of 



252 NOTABLE W O M E X OF S T. L O U I S 

the newspaper woman, who has no right to do or write anything that 
would lessen the respect of the public for her work. 

Miss Winn was in charge of the social work of the World's Fair 
in 1904 for her paper, and counts as one of her privileges that of having 
met the late Cardinal Satolli, as well as many other important and noted 
people. Introduced to him by Archbishop Glennon with a few kindly 
words about her position as a newspaper writer, the old gentleman 
impulsively picked up a dinner menu — for the meeting was at a dinner 
in his honor at the German House — and wrote upon it the words "Honestas, 
Veritas, Caritas," saying, "Let this be your motto: 'Be honest always in 
what you write, tell only the truth, and love your profession so dearly 
that you will never fall short of your ideal of perfect fairness.' " These 
words would be a good motto for any newspaper woman; or man, either, 
for that matter. 

Miss Winn has seen the attitude of club women towards the press 
change very greatly in the years that she has been connected with the 
club column. At first there was the shrinking from what some of 
the women called the notoriety of having their names in the paper, 
real on the part of some of them and affected on the part of others. But 
club work has undergone a great change, and from its being merely an 
eifort on the part of a woman for self-improvement, Miss Winn says 
it has become a great altruistic movement with which the majority of 
women are proud to have their names associated. There is no longer 
any trouble in gathering club news, as press committees send this in, and 
it is only necessary to edit it, and that some time the clubs will wake up 
to the fact that the chairman and members of the press committee should 
be the very ablest women that the club contains, as by their work it 
will be largely judged, not only by the newspaper women who must 
edit their copy, but bj' the readers of their reports. 

Miss Winn says it is the business of a woman journalist to hold as 
a sacred trust the reputation of the paper, to insist upon its right to 
its share of the news, to be faithful to its business interests and its 
ideals, to let no ignoble motive, petty personality or mistaken friendship 
enter into her work and to be always willing and ready at whatever 
personal sacrifice to serve it. That is what the highest class of news- 
paper expects of its women workers. Gathering news is a business, and 
with the proper co-operation is as pleasant, and, at the same time, as 
arduous, as any other enterprise. The world looks to the newspaper each 
morning to supply it with legitimate news, and it is the business of the 
woman journalist to hold as a sacred trust the reputation of her paper. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 253 

For a woman, journalism is the finest of professions, her work 
being generallj' the reflection of her own character, and she should strive 
constantly to give it the best that is in her. 

Miss Winn's work is club news, "Matters of Interest for Women 
Readers," on the daily, and a half page, each week, under the name of 
"Frank Fair," under caption "Women the Wide World Over," including 
two poems for the Sunday "Globe-Democrat." 

The column "Matters of Interest to Women Readers," is finished 
off with a paragraph, "Ry Way of Comment," which is always a gem, and 
the opinions expressed, as well as comments made on general topics, 
also her practical and original suggestions, are well worth the reading, 
furnishing food for substantial thought each day. 

On Sundays "Women the Wide World Over" takes up a half page, 
and is a condensed account of what women are accomplishing, in what 
work they are progressing; in fact, their success in general all over the 
world. In order to keep readers in touch with their work in all parts 
of the country. Miss Winn reads the news stories of all the metropolitan 
papers each day, at least that part concerned with such work. For 
instance, one day in San Francisco the women are asking for the recall 
of a judge whom they consider to have been untrue to the trust they, as 
voters, have reposed in him. On the same daj' a woman is elected 
member of the school board of Roston after an exciting campaign, and 
down in Austin, Tex., Mrs. Clara DriscoU Sevier announces that she will 
stay with the Legislature, if it takes all summer, until the Alamo is turned 
over to the Daughters of the Republic in that State. Such news stories 
are condensed to five and six lines and seem to be popular, as they are 
copied in many of the papers of the country. The suffrage workers, the 
General Federation, the Daughters of the Revolution, and other patriotic 
societies, are of interest, not in a sensational way, but for the great good 
each is accomplishing, and men as well as women are interested. 

The editor of the woman's column tries to see the passing show 
from every point of Aiew. She notes the catchwords, yesterday "solid- 
arity" and today "efficiency," and the "social uplift," but she knows that 
under this pretentious cloak of seriousness the great woman heart is beat- 
ing in sympathy with the world and that there is no going backwards 
ever again, and she, in her way, wants to help. 

Miss Winn has been on the staff of the "Globe-Democrat" for fifteen 
years. She is an unusual character — plain and frank, and mthout affec- 
tation. A very serious-minded woman, alive to all progressive move- 
ments, yet retiring and conservative. She lives with her brother, who 



254 NOTABLE WOMEN OF 8 T. L U I S 

is also engaged in newspaper work, near Forest Park University, where 
she can be in the midst of the trees and flowers she loves so well. 
Miss Winn is her own housekeeper; she arises early; in fact, she is always 
up and busy at sunrise. After breakfast and her housework is over, Miss 
Winn settles down to writing for a few hours, in which she feels that she 
can accomplish more than by rising later and working all the day. At 
noon she goes to her office and selects inaterial for her daily column 
and attends to her mail. 

It is to be hoped Miss Winn will collect these little "By Way of 
Comment" paragraphs and put them in book form. This would make 
a literary work of much importance. 

Miss Winn is of Irish parentage on her father's side, and on her 
mother's she is of English extraction. She has beautiful grey eyes, and 
by many of her intimate literary friends is called "Jane Grey (eyes) 
Winn." She is a woman who lives within her own soul and does not 
depend on the passing show for her peace and contentment. 




KAJIWARA PriOTO 



MRS. BERENICE WYER 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 255 



MRS. BERENICE WYER 

WOMEN can have a career — we know that; they can have children — 
we know that, but only one in a thousand can have both triumph- 
antly. Mrs. Berenice Wyer is one in a thousand. She did not 
learn music by singing lullabies, but sang lullabies and composed her music 
besides, for she is a musician wlio has made herself appreciated in St. 
Louis. 

Now she is at work putting to music that beautiful old love tragedy 
of Paolo and Francesca, that has been the theme of poets from Dante to 
D'Annunzio. Dante tells it in just a few immortal lines — when the two 
spirits of Francesca and Paolo, united in death, float by him, and Francesca 
begins, "By Rimini that sits by the sea" and tells their love story — how 
they were reading together, she and Paolo, from that old book of Launcelot 
when their love overcame them, down to her naive confession — 
"And we read no more that day." 

This cantillation, like her earlier work, "Miles Standish," is built upon 
the "leit motiv" idea, each principal character having its own musical 
phrase, which recurs under different guises as the emotions vary in the 
progress of the story. Of course, much new material is added, but these 
phrases, or motives, form the groundwork of the cantillation. 

In Paolo and Francesca, tlie prelude of a severe contrapuntal char- 
acter, introduces the Giovanni motive later used in his great song of lament 
and regret. The "Francesca" motive follows, a simple, wistful little 
phrase. "Angela's vision," is where she sees "One stealing in upon your 
wife to woo her; unwillingly she is wooed; yet shall they woo; his kiss was 
on her lips ere she was born." This music is a soft and eerie melody, 
with an accompaniment of broken chords. Then the trumpets sound — 
the marriage march to the wedding ceremony of Giovanni and Francesca. 

Afterward we hear the poignant little phrase of Paolo, who is already 
under the spell of his hopeless love. And as the story progresses each 
emotion, deepened by the music, follows every inood of the poem, and 
rises to heights of rapture when the two helpless but rejoicing lovers sit 
together in the garden "under gi-eat roses." 

Mrs. Wyer lectured three years ago before the Piano Club of Kirk- 
wood, also gave lecture recitals in St. Louis, which are valuable not alone 
to every serious student of music, but as a help to concert-goers toward an 



256 NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O U I 8 

intelligent appreciation of the great musical works. This she has done 
for schools and musical organizations. 

She possesses sound musicianship, as well as splendid pianistic equip- 
ment, and has the happy faculty of being able to interpret her subjects in 
a manner easily understood and appreciated. 

Berenice Wyer, nee Crumb, was born in Connecticut, but spent most 
of her childhood in Missouri. She attended successively Forest Park 
University and Hosmer Hall, her musical education during all this time 
being under the guidance of Ernest Kroeger, and included pianoforte 
playing, harmony, counterpoint, and exercises in writing in the strict 
forms, including canon and fugue. Schumann remarks that "Every pro- 
fessional musician should have mastered counterpoint and fugue by the 
age of nineteen," which was just her age when she finished these subjects, 
though they were supplemented in later years by a systematic study of 
musical form, history, biography and folklore music. In all these subjects 
she made copious and valuable notes. Her study under Mr. Kroeger laid 
a solid foundation for her musical education, and later on Boston's fore- 
most teacher, Carl Baermann, said of his teaching: "It is beyond criticism. 
If I had a daughter I should be willing to have him instruct her." 

Her progress was steady, and after five years of study here her parents 
sent her to New York, where she became one of two pupils of Mr. Franz 
Rummel, one of the greatest pianists of his day. Mr. Rummel concertized 
in Holland and Germany the following year, so she was obliged to go to 
Boston, where she became a pupil of Mr. Carl Baermann, who was recog- 
nized as the leading pianist and teacher. Under him she studied four 
years, after which she made her debut in Boston, giving a pianoforte 
recital, the programme of which would tax any i)ianist to the utmost. 
The critics, among them Wolff, Elson and others, were unanimous in 
recognizing her work as that of a high-class artist. 

Mr. Baermann invited an old friend, who was a severe critic, to hear 
her recital in Steinert Hall, Boston, but he declined. "I never listen to 
pupils' recitals," he declared. However he was coaxed to attend and after- 
wards sent him this message: "This young lady is a genius. I kiss her 
finger tips." 

A tour abroad followed the year in Boston, with a year's study 
under Heinrich Barth, in Berlin, whose leaching was of the same sound, 
conservative tjqje as Mr. Baermann's, so that Mrs. Wyer leans naturally 
more to the classics, particularly Bach and Schumann, than to the latter 
modern composers, though she finds tlie newer Russian writers most 
congenial. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U 1 8 257 

Returning home, lier marriage to Dr. Harry G. Wyer followed with 
all the new experiences of home-making and, later on, motherhood. Yet 
her profession was never neglected and she filled many recital engage- 
ments. Her latest field has been cantillation, the combining of spoken 
words and music. In this she has collaborated with Ethan Allen Taussig. 

The art of combining dramatic recital with music is an ancient one. 
The Greek chorus exemplified the use of music to heighten the effect of 
declaimed or chanted poetry. This art has been largely revived abroad, 
and America is now realizing the high place which cantillation holds in 
the musical world. 

In this field the entire artistic success hinges upon the perfect balance 
and harmony of the music and reading. Without the most exquisite 
rapport between the two parts, the result is disaster. The unusual success 
of Mrs. Wyer and Mr. Taussig in their recitals is perhaps mainly due to 
this perfect adjustment and balance, thus giving the presentation a com- 
plete organic unity. Mrs. Wyer has, in addition to a technique adequate 
to every demand, those rare qualities of intellectual grasp, and an innate 
emotional sympathy with the composer's idea. She is particularly 
adapted for this work of interpretation. 

Their repertoire includes several of the best known works in this field, 
as well as several novelties. "The Enoch Arden" and "Miles Standish" 
occupy an entire evening. Other shorter cantillations are "King Robert 
of Sicily," "The Witches' Song," Bergliot," etc. 

Mrs. Wyer was never the least ambitious as a composer, holding the 
view that there is more fine music already written than can be fully appre- 
ciated, but her attention was first drawn to composing after a wonderfully 
successful performance of Strauss' "Enoch Arden," with Mr. Taussig as 
reader. Afterwards, thinking of what great pleasure such works might 
bring, the idea came to try her hand with some well-known poem. The 
"Miles Standish" of Longfellow suited the requirements as to length and 
action, so she set to work upon it secretly. At tliis time she had two little 
children to care for, and composed, as she says, with the children crowding 
about her. When the work was well under way she asked Mr. Taussig to 
come and hear the cantillation of a new composer — "Felix Weidelmann." 
He did so and criticized it fairly and candidly, saying that it was rather 
too sweet and lovely, lacking in force and virility, and exclaiming at the 
end of the playing, "By Jove, that man has the gift of melody." Then she 
told him that the fault might be remedied, for it was her own work. With 
the help of his suggestions the music was satisfactorily completed and 
rehearsed. 



258 NOTABLE WOMEN OF ST. LOUIS 

At a subsequent concert all the advertising, etc., bore the name of 
"Weidelmann" as composer, and the secret was so well kept that but two 
persons knew of it. 

Under this name she has contributed an important item to the musical 
literature of America. The composition shows talent of a very high 
order and workmanship proclaiming the skilled musician 

In the treatment of the themes she has been delightfully straight- 
forward and unaffected. The harmonization is never involved, and there 
is no hint of commonplace. A Iiighly interesting bit of writing is the com- 
bination of the "Alden and Priscilla" motifs near the close of the work. 

Mr. Taussig, who collaborates with Mrs. Wyer in the presentation of 
her work in concerts, recitals, etc., in his reading of the poems shows fine 
appreciation, not only of the text, but of the music as well. At the concert 
the first time "The Courtship of Miles Standish" was given, Mr. Taussig 
informed the audience that he had a surprise in store for them, that he 
would have the pleasure and privilege of introducing the composer, "Mr. 
Weidelmann." Then, when Mrs. Wyer came out she received an ovation 
that was tremendous. They were at once engaged for other performances 
for the St. Louis College Club, Shurtleff College, Alton, the Wednesday 
Club, and for an entertainment in honor of the National Federation of 
Women's Clubs. 

Shortly after that the germ of another composition began floating 
through her mind — that was two years ago, and they have been waiting 
for expression, until now she is working upon this music set to the 
words of Stephen Phillips' "Paolo and Francesco." 

Mrs. Wyer is a severe critic of her own work, and makes no preten- 
tions to be more than a most humble follower of the masters. However, 
what she composes is decidedly individual, and so afraid is she of uncon- 
scious plagiarism that when writing she makes a point of not attending 
concerts, lest others unconsciously suggest ideas to her. She believes that 
no one should even attempt to write who has not had a thorough ground- 
ing in harmony, counterpoint, musical analysis, and form. To these must 
be added taste and imagination. 

Her one aim is to be the reverend interpreter of the great masters of 
classic times and the later romantic composers. To give forth their 
messages so clearly and to embody their emotions so beautifully that all 
must understand and love them — this is her life work. 

Mrs. Wyer possesses the rare faculty of "absolute pitch" — she can 
distinguish tones faultlessly — for instance, when a hand is crashed down 
on a piano at random she can detect and name each note struck, the tones 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L O V 1 S 259 

of a chime, of a whistle, of musical notes in any combination. This is a 
knowledge one does possess, or does not — one must be born with that — it 
is not an acquired sense. She is also the happy possessor of an infallible 
memory. 

Mrs. Wyer is the wife of Dr. Henry Gage Wyer, of Kirkwood, Mo. 
He is a general practioner, and has been a resident there before and since 
their marriage. Boston was his former home. He is a Harvard man and 
also a graduate of the Harvard Medical College. They met in the East 
wliile attending college, and after finishing her musical course in Boston 
she returned to St. Louis to do concert work for two years. They have 
two children, Beatrice and Richard. 

Mrs. Wyer is a young woman and there is a fine outlook before her in 
her chosen profession. She has a strong, unselfish, and gentle nature, a 
calm and steady temperament, with deep feeling. The strength and sweet- 
ness of her nature are expressed in her face. 



260 ROTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 



T 



ADDENDA 

HE work of the following capable and clever women, in various 
lines of endeavor, would fill another volume: 



Miss F. M. Bacon, educator. 

Miss Anita Moore, publicity writer and of special stories for the news- 
papers, and whose delightful book on Fairies and Flowers is about to be 
issued from the press of Bobbs-Merrill & Co. 

Mrs. Irene McLagan, Miss Katherine Richardson, Miss May Cerf; 
Mesdames M. R. Bauduy, Frances Scovell, Emily Alcott, Miss VAL Jones, 
are feature writers for local papers. 

Dr. Ella Marx, member of the staff of the Evening Dispensary for 
Women, and Dr. Caroline Skinner, practicing phN'sicians who stand well 
in their profession. 

Mrs. Clara Hiementz, author of "Cress." 

Mrs. W. H. Chi^-^'is, president of the Federated Clubs of Missouri. 

Mrs. Edith Hall Orthwein, author of "Petals of Love for Thee." 

Mrs. Charles F. Joy. author and artist. 

Mrs. Hudson Bridge, photographer and musician. 

Mme. Delladonna, harpist for the Symphony Society. 

Mrs. E. C. Runge and Miss Catherine Dunn, acting magistrates of 
the Juvenile Court. 

Mrs. Herman Luyties, Mrs. Charles Claflin Allen, and Mrs. Paul Y. 
Tupper, pianistes. 

Miss Cordeha Maury, painter in pastels; Miss Lillian Brown, oils 
and water colors; Mrs. Emily B. Summa, nature studies, and Mrs. T. H. 
Conkling, oils. 

Miss Mary E. Bulkley, bookbinder. 

Miss Cordelia T. Baker, instructor in book-binding at St. Louis School 
of Fine Arts. 

Miss Alice Martin, interpreter of dances. 

Mrs. Rodney Coonsman, artistic commercial designer. 

Miss Delpliine Force, instructor of domestic science in an Eastern 
college. 

Miss Julia C. Reith, assistant to Mr. Strauss, the pliotographer, for 
a number of years. 



NOTABLE WOMEN OF S T. L U I S 261 

Mrs. Perry Bartholow, of the Art Museum. 

Miss Jennie Jones, educator. 

Miss Mary Semple Scott, writer of short stories. 

Mrs. James Hagerman, astronomer. 

Mrs. Karl Kimmel, vocaHst of much ability. 

Mrs. Virt;iJ Rule, who has publisiied her first book of fairy poems, 
which has been so favorably commented upon. 

Mrs. John D. Johnson, vocalist; Mrs. George Corlis, pianistc, and 
Mrs. T. De Witt Lukens, reader, who form a happy ti'io in giving concerts 
for charity. 

Miss Charlotte Rumbold, of whom a whole book could be written 
aljout Iier splendid public recreation work, the coming Pageant and 
Masque of St. Louis — of which she is the instigator — public Christmas 
tree celebration, and other civic enterprises. 

Miss Emma Warr, superintendent of nurses in the City Hospital, and 
instructor in the School of Nurses. 

Dr. Hesselberg, biologist and assistant to Dr. Loeb, of the Skin and 
Cancer Hospital. 

Mrs. Atlanta Haecker, educator. 

Mrs. Emil Klokkc, contributor to the German newspapers for many 
years. 

Miss Anna Hinrichs, the talented secretary of the Papyrus Club. 

Mrs. Seneca Taylor, who has a facile pen. 

Mrs. Mary Holladay, the first woman president of a railway company 
in Missouri. 

Mrs. J. B. Shapleigh, president of the Visiting Nurses' Association. 

Mrs. James Nugent, president of the Missouri Branch of the National 
Congress of Mothers. 

Mrs. Birney Dysart, of the Federated Clubs. 

Miss Mary McDearmon, teaclier of special training class for truant 
children of the public schools. 

Mrs. Mildred McFaden, journalist. 

Mrs. Florence Laflin, author. 

Miss Jennie Hildenbrandt, domestic science instructor. 

Miss Georgina Raby, writer for newspapers and magazines. 

Mrs. Joseph Rossman, extensive charity worker. 

Miss Eda Sutermeister, landscape gardener. 

Mrs. Philip B. Fouke, interested in charitable movements. 

Mrs. Julia Underwood, writer of the religious department of the 
"Globe-Democrat" for nineteen years. 



262 NOTABLE W M E N F 8 T. L O U J 8 

Mesdames H. McKittrick Jones, L. M. McCall, both of whom are 
actively interested in all principal organizations of the city; also, Mrs. 
Harry L. King. 

Miss Martha McCauUey, of Washington University. 

Miss O'Brien, attornej'. 

Mrs. John Livingston Lowes, Mrs. George Gelhorn, Mrs. John Walker 
Barriger, Miss Leone Robinson, Mrs. B. F. Burch, Mrs. William C. Fordyce, 
Miss Marie Garesche, Mrs. B. B. Graham, Miss Mary Lionberger, Mrs. 
David O'Neill, Mrs. Charles Parsons Pettus, Mrs. Robert Sanford, Mrs. 
Ernest W. Stix, Mrs. Roland G. Usher, officers of the Equal Suffrage 
League of St. Louis. 



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